Quiet Neighbors

by Catriona McPherson

  “But she’s not just a friend, is she?” Jude said. “You and she need to … bond.”

  “We’ve bonded!” said Lowell in a happy shout. “Already I feel I’ve known her all my life. She looks … ” He shook his head and his eyes were shining. His whole face was shining. “I’m a father and I’m going to be a grandfather in a month’s time. We have a wonderful hospital at Ayr, although it’s rather far away. Well, well. We shall just have to see what the doctor says. I shall ring and make an appointment.”

  Jude dug in her dress pocket. She was wearing a smock today. Bell sleeves and ten cuff buttons, a square of embroidery on the front like a breast plate, and these capacious pockets. She held out her hand.

  Lowell blinked.

  “The key,” she said. “So Eddy’s not stuck in the house.”

  “Ah.” He took it and patted her hand. “Well, I’ll probably stay with her, don’t you know? There’s not much on today and there’s no foot trade when it’s raining. I might just stay.”

  Once they were gone, when Jude went downstairs again, she noticed the prized Audubon sitting not quite unwrapped on his desk where he had left it, the girl’s half-empty mug on top and a drop of milky tea drying into its jacket in a tiny puckered dome.

  She had found five volumes of Nevil Shute in various places and gathered them together in Fiction. (Fiction, not Literature. These were yarns as yarn-like as the tale of the burning plane, by her bed.) Five was a nice collection, she thought, and most were in good shape—although one had a bright yellow sticker on its jacket, proclaiming it to be “53”, whatever that meant—but she was almost sure she had glimpsed another in that bag protruding from low in the heap in the dead room …

  It was disorganised and disorderly, a disgrace to library science, to go truffling after it. And she was at least as repelled as she was attracted to that lurking mountainous wrongness behind the locked door, crouched there like a toad, growing in the dark like a tumor.

  She was close to nausea when she found herself sidling back in and feeling around for the light switch.

  She was right. The bag—thin plastic, years old, and even crisper than it had begun—was just where she remembered it, and inside it, as well as the Jilly Cooper, there was indeed a garish, shiny-jacketed On the Beach. The same edition as the one upstairs, but this time without the sticker. Jude plucked it out, stiffened briefly as the toad resettled itself, and then bore the volume away upstairs to the others.

  It was in good nick for its thirty years, none of its pages ever folded and no tears at the turn of the spine from being forced into an over-packed shelf. It was only a reprint for a book club, but book clubs back then put out well-made volumes, and it was still an attractive object to the right person. Jude flipped it open and saw that the owner had written his or her name on the flyleaf in that careful old-fashioned script so familiar to her from her grandmother’s birthday cards: T. Jolly it said, in fountain pen ink. Jude wrote £5 in one corner with her soft pencil and flipped to the back flyleaf. She tutted. T. Jolly was a note-taker and had filled the back boards with his (or her) thoughts about On the Beach. Jude twirled the pencil like a six-shooter, rubbed out the 5, wrote 2, and inserted the book into the run, along with its stickered mate, between No Highway and Requiem for a Wren.

  She worked steadily until half past four and then could no longer ignore her stomach rumbling. She would, she thought, stop in at the newsagents and buy a picnic of junk food to eat in her room, not get mixed up in the love-fest downstairs.

  The fact was that without a store cupboard of oil, salt, pepper, flour, and all the things you never think of, without a sieve or a grater, it was pretty hard to make food up there, and she didn’t know how long the four hundred might have to last her. Those women in the Anne Tyler stories didn’t seem to need garlic presses or measuring spoons. Maybe they ate ready-made from the cook-chill, but Anne Tyler didn’t seem the type.

  Before she left, she took a look around and, despite everything, felt a small nut of satisfaction, plump and shiny, inside her. She’d winkled out all the short story anthologies and semi-fictional memoirs and, feeling less compunction about Lowell than before, had made her own decision about the Ladies and the Mighty Hunters, Fiction and Literature. Doris and Toni were in; Nevil and Nick were out. And every book she touched got a wipe and felt the soft caress of her pricing pencil.

  If only, Jude thought as she killed the light and sank the room into greyness exactly the colour of the water in her book-wiping bucket.

  If only what? she asked herself in the little toilet as she poured the water away. If only Eddy had stayed put in Derry all alone? How selfish could she get?

  She pulled the street door closed. The rain had stopped and Wigtown was nestled in cosily for the evening with lit lamps and smoking chimneys. The lights of the Co-op and the newsagents shone out across the still-damp pavements, making them gleam.

  And Lowell had told her straight: “Plenty room in Jamaica House for three.” There was no reason not to think he meant it. She tried not to look at the tabloids arranged on the low shelf in front of the newsagent’s counter, kept her eyes trained on the glass cubicle of the post-office section while her mind circled. Eddy wasn’t pushing her out either. Jamaica House was still a haven. As long as she was happy to go from treasured guest to tag-along, she was welcome to stay.

  It took a good few minutes to register what she was reading.

  for rent: kirk cottage, wigtown.

  fully furnished, pets by arrangement

  £200 pcm. tel 01988 612932

  The postcard was yellowed and there was a square brown stain where the first generation of Sellotape had aged and died. It was stuck to the glass with replacement tape, but even that was hardly young. Jude stared at it. Rented by the month? There was no reason she shouldn’t spend some of the money Lowell had given her. The asking price was reasonable. Beyond reasonable. The holiday cottage just big enough for Max and her had been five hundred for a fortnight.

  Someone had spoken.

  Jude turned round to find the shopkeeper, a smiling woman in her late sixties. Another one. The whole town was peopled by grannies. This one was giving her an expectant look, twinkling but not smirking.

  “Thinking on Digger’s Cott, are you?” she said.

  “Kirk Cottage?” said Jude, scanning the notices for another one.

  “Aye, that’s right,” the woman said.

  “It seems cheap,” said Jude. “Is there anything wrong with it?”

  “Naw, it’s a couthie wee hoosie. Todd kept it braw and betimes your man’s been a guid steward since he was taken.”

  There had been quite a few exchanges like this one since Jude had arrived. Of course, everyone’s vowels were mangled, but most spoke English despite the strange sounds. Every so often, though, Jude would come up against a wall of vocabulary, grammar, and rhythm—plus the vowels—that made a person’s speech no more than music to her. Couthie wee hoosie. Betimes your man.

  “Has it been empty a while?”

  “Ocht, aye. Your man’s no Gekko and there’s them as canna thole it.”

  Jude smiled, understanding one word in ten, and wrote down the number while the woman rang up her Ginsters and Pringles.

  “But then there’s always them as relishes the peace and quiet,” the woman went on, twitching a flimsy carrier off the hook to pack Jude’s purchases. “And whatever befalls you at Digger’s, you’ll never have rowdy neighbours, will you?” She rewarded herself with a deep chuckle as if at her own wit—although Jude was guessing—and handed the bag over the counter.

  “So is it Kirk or Digger’s?” Jude asked.

  “It’s baith. And Jolly too. It was always Jolly’s Cott when we were wee and Todd was hale.”

  “Jolly?” said Jude, staring in amazement. “Todd Jolly? T. Jolly? He lived there?”

  “Owned it outright,” sai
d the woman. “Why?”

  “I’ve just been sorting his books,” said Jude. A true Londoner, she was thunderstruck.

  “Aye, he was a great reader,” the woman said, not struck at all, of course.

  “Incredible,” Jude said. “What a small world.”

  “Damn right it is in Wigtown. Books to the boy and hoose to the man and naeb’dy the wiser on either. We’ve never seen Jollys since.”

  “Right,” said Jude, back to being mystified again.

  “I’m Jackie, by the way,” the woman said at last, perhaps sensing the encounter was almost over and wanting to prolong it.

  “Jude,” said Jude, shaking her hand.

  “Aye, that’s what I’d heard. But I thought you were fixed. And here you’re flitting.”

  Eight

  Jude tried the number from Lowell’s landline as soon as she got in, standing in her coat in the hallway by the big black rotary phone. When the line went dead after a series of clicks, she felt the little bubble that had grown in her chest deflate again. It was no surprise. If someone was too disorganised to make a go of a cute little cottage—there was no picture; she was only guessing—why would they pay a phone bill?

  She climbed the stairs to the landing, pulling herself up by the banister rail, weary from disappointment rather than work. Before she could start on the second flight up to her attic, though, Lowell popped his head out of one of the bedroom doors and summoned her with a crooked finger.

  “Can we have a chat?” he whispered. “I mean, not if you’re tired, my dear, you look rather tired, but perhaps later.”

  “Is Eddy in there?” said Jude, whispering too.

  He smiled at the sound of her name and he stood back, opening the door wide. Jude tiptoed forward and peered in, seeing Eddy on the made bed but covered with a quilt and propped up with two pillows at her back and three in front, including one Jude had been using upstairs as a cushion in an armchair.

  Lowell slipped out, latched the door without a single sound, and led Jude away with a gentle hand under her elbow.

  Down in the kitchen he grew boisterous, clapping his hands together and announcing that the evening called for champagne. It was mostly high spirits, but Jude looked closer and thought she saw a frenetic edge, as though he were keyed up, dreading something.

  “Pretty amazing,” she said. “First me then Eddy. Not that I’m—I mean, she’s your daughter. I know that’s something else again, but it doesn’t seem ten minutes since you were watching me sleep when I turned up out of the blue.”

  “It’s like I told you,” said Lowell. “Back to old times. Miranda and I weren’t here alone. There were at least three of us all that summer and more usually. At the weekends anyway, and for August.”

  “She lived here?” A daughter who turned up on the doorstep had made Jude think of a one-night stand.

  “The summer of ’94 until the spring of ’95,” said Lowell. “That was my, well, dear me, that was my wild year.”

  Jude tried not to look too calculating, but he guessed anyway.

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “I was over forty. Rather late in the day for wild years. But it was my first chance, and look how well it turned out eventually.”

  Momentarily, he had forgotten about Eddy and as the thought of her came back to the front of his mind and struck him anew, he beamed again, helplessly, like the bowl of a fountain filling with water and spilling over.

  “So um, yes, well anyway, dear me,” he said, after a moment. His smile had dimmed, although he couldn’t turn completely solemn while he had such happiness inside him.

  Jude felt her pulse quicken, sure she didn’t want to hear whatever it gave him such trouble to say.

  “I’m getting on like a house on fire with Fiction and Literature,” she blurted out. “I’ve switched categories for quite a few authors. Less biological.” She was, she admitted to herself, trying to start a fight, trying to put a distance between them to help her cope with what was coming.

  “Good, good, good, excellent,” Lowell said. “Recategorise to your heart’s delight, my dear. It was never my forte. In fact, I think my father did the foundation of the organising. He took an interest in Lowland Glen briefly the year he retired. Thirty years ago, by jove. But returning to my point, my dear. I don’t want to suggest, not a bit, not for a minute, that Eddy arriving changes a thing. Not a jot, not a scrap.”

  “But?” said Jude, thinking here it comes.

  “Well, yes. This is the thing. You see, I showed her round. I wanted to show her where her mother slept and everything she touched. The asparagus bed! That was Miranda’s doing. She loved the garden. And the thing is, Eddy—I suppose I’ll get used to that: Eddy!—has rather fallen in love with the attic rooms, you see.” He sat back, slumped with relief for finally having said it.

  Jude nodded and hoped her face looked less blank and cold than it felt, because it felt like putty.

  “She didn’t take at all to the notion of staying downstairs and sharing these rooms, but as soon as she saw the attics her little face lit up. Well, I suppose that’s because you made it every girl’s dream. It is looking very pretty.”

  Jude nodded again and managed a smile; one twitch out to both sides at the mouth and nothing at all in her eyes.

  “So you see, dear me, yes, I have a proposition for you. I own a cottage, you see. Not the bungalow, another one. Minutes away and it’s empty and you can have it. It’s quietly situated and really very—What is it?”

  “Jolly’s Cottage?” said Jude.

  “Kirk Cottage,” said Lowell, with a start of surprise, “but yes they call it that in the village.”

  “You own it?” said Jude, but even as she aired her disbelief she felt things shift into place. Your man, Jackie had said, meaning Lowell. Your man’s a something steward. And of course she couldn’t ring that half-familiar number from his landline! She laughed and, though he couldn’t know why, the fountain basin spilled again and he laughed too.

  “And the rent’s really—” she began, but he shushed her.

  “Tush, no stop, no really, not a bit of it. I insist. You’re doing marvels at Lowland Glen and I’ve yet to make it up to you for the discovery of the dead room. So not another word about rent, I implore you.”

  “When can I go and see it?” Jude said.

  “Tonight by torchlight,” said Lowell. “Or first thing tomorrow.” As he spoke, a squall of new rain hit the kitchen window and the voice of the wind sounded in the chimney. They grinned at each other.

  “Tomorrow,” said Jude.

  “You won’t be lonely,” Lowell said. “You must come to Jamaica every evening after work for supper.”

  “Thank you, Sir Thomas,” said Jude. “Sense and Sensibility,” she added at his frown, and he laughed again.

  “Well yes, dear me, but wait until you’ve seen it, my dear. It’s nothing like the one they used in the film.”

  “So if it’s not Jane Austen,” she said, “whose novel will I be walking into tomorrow?”

  His face might have clouded, or it could have been her imagination, or even just the unwelcome reminder of Literature and Fiction. Perhaps he had been stung by her insinuations after all.

  “I’m sorry I was irritable,” she said. He shook his head with his mouth turned down in a carp pout, denying all knowledge of any such thing. “I was … I felt … jealous, I suppose. I was envious of Eddy.”

  “Oh my dear,” said Lowell. “There’s absolutely no need for you to feel that way. I told Eddy all about you—you don’t mind, do you? And of course the dear child is only relieved to have someone here who understands. I do my best, but what use is an old codger like me? All passion spent, don’t you know.”

  Jude stared at him. “What do you mean?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  Lowell blinked. “Your parents, of
course. Her mother. I’ve been through it too, as I say, but so long ago now and, well, um.”

  “Of course!” said Jude. “I mean, it’s very different after a long illness and with a baby coming. You threw me. But of course.”

  “What did you think I meant?” said Lowell, eyeing her.

  Jude didn’t answer for a while. She looked around the kitchen at the pile of National Geographic beside the battered old sofa, a pile high enough to serve as a side-table and actually that minute holding the customary plate and mug from Lowell’s breakfast. She looked at the gimcrack kitchen units and the rippled vinyl on the floor, at the straggling pot of parsley on the windowsill and the balled-up J-cloth, dark with coffee grounds, stuffed down behind the taps.

  While she was staying here under his roof she had kept the portcullis down, bolted to iron rings that were driven deep in the ground. She had to; if she lifted it just an inch and snakes sprang out, slithering into every corner, if filth poured out and coated every surface, if insects swarmed out in clouds to fill the air … what would she do? She couldn’t clean Jamaica House from roof to cellar every day without him noticing.

  But if she was going to Jolly’s Cottage (and despite Lowell’s warning, the picture in her head was the golden haven from that beautiful movie with a green meadow and women in muslin), she’d have a retreat from his prying eyes and his clever questions. Maybe it was one of those tiny cottages with a door and two windows. Maybe she could clean the whole place every day before breakfast and again before bed. Then she could let all her hard-fought recovery float away, give up on breathing and coping and hurting, and just go back to the comfort of the only thing that really helped. She could pull it even tighter round her this time, without Max to placate. She could clean the inside of the keyholes with cotton buds soaked in white spirit, like the girl in her group therapy used to do. The nurse had scowled, but everyone else in the group, the six of them, seized the tip and felt richer.

  So maybe, just maybe, she could let a bit of it go.

  “My parents dying was the last straw,” she said. “My husband left me last summer—well, made me leave him, actually—and Eddy said she was single too. I thought you meant that. Alone.”