by Minna Howard
It was a bittersweet time for the three of them. Possessions, especially childhood ones, evoked memories – memories of the good times now gone.
‘If Dad had died, we would have a better feeling about looking back,’ Polly said suddenly, tossing a couple of books into the bag for the charity shop. ‘He used to read me these, over and over, but now I don’t want to think about it.’
‘He’s still your father,’ Sarah reminded her hating Dan for hurting them so.
‘He’s not the same man at all, all stupid with that woman. He can hardly talk to us any more – she gets jealous,’ Tim said morosely.
Sarah stayed silent. Tim and Polly usually met up with Dan for lunch when he was on his own, but they had gone over to Nina’s flat a couple of times for supper. She did not ask questions, too afraid to hear how happy Dan was and what fun they had without her.
‘You can chuck all this out. I don’t know why I kept them anyway,’ Tim said, kicking the bag of Lego aimlessly with his foot and discarding a very expensive steam engine, which belched out real steam, that he used to love.
Sarah resisted the temptation to pack up all his old toys, books, CDs, videos and other paraphernalia and keep them all. She had to let go of the old life, as they had. Later, though, she compromised and retrieved some of the better toys, telling herself if she ever had grandchildren, they would enjoy them.
The two houses were valued and, to her delight, Sarah found there was quite a profit from the sale. Dan must have heard of this, too, for he rang her again.
‘I know I said you could keep the house, but I didn’t know you were going to sell it so soon. I’m entitled to some of the cash; we agreed on that.’
The way he said it chilled her. She had always shared anything she had with him, but now he’d share it with that mouse she did not feel so generous.
‘I’ll let you know what’s left over. It needs things doing to it, I want to decorate it to please myself and they weren’t giving it away,’ she said, and rang off.
Later, he sent a text explaining in detail how fair he was being. The price of property had shot up and he deserved his share of the profit. She agreed to send him some of the profit straight away and said she’d wait and see what was left when she’d finished what was needed in the new house. She reminded him that if he hadn’t left her she wouldn’t have had to move.
Suddenly, all the frantic packing was over. It was her last night in the Crescent. They had bought the house when she was pregnant with Tim, and Dan had been left a little money by his grandfather. The house had been grubby and shabby, made up as bed-sits. Every room held a riot of coloured wallpaper, with a different-patterned clashing carpet. They’d seen through the dirt and the crudely divided rooms to the family house it had become. This was the linchpin of their world; now she must let it go and move on.
Tim and Polly had somehow slipped away, not able to bear ‘a last night’. She understood that; she wished she could avoid it, too. She wandered from room to room, seeing the ghosts of a happier life. The marks on the laundry-room door, where she’d measured the children as they grew; the bright patches of clean wallpaper on the parts of wall that had been covered by furniture or pictures they had chosen together. Once, her marriage had been bright like that, before it had faded and died.
She slept with the agitation of someone with an early plane to catch, afraid not to wake in time. When the morning came she struggled up with relief, wanting the move over.
In the new house, her days became a round of builders, and searching for wallpapers and colours, She took Polly’s advice and turned the cupboard on the landing by her room into a shower-room, she’d leave her to paint her own room as she wanted it herself and soon it became magic and colourful with exotic scenes of plants and animals. Tim not to be undone chose an elaborate wall paper with an Indian design and he lost his sad face and went off to Spain to work in a beach bar.
Sarah juggled work between it all, until she was so stressed and tired she didn’t know how she kept going.
Dan rang her again. He always rang while she was in the shop, knowing she usually answered the landline there. He told her to stop being childish over the money and give him more of what was left over as the difference between the old house and the new or he would stop the money he gave her if she wouldn’t be fair.
‘Don’t you talk about being fair to me!’ she snapped. ‘Because of you, I had to move, and while the builders were there I got them to do everything, once and for all. I’ll send you half of what’s left and pay my own bills when it’s finished.’
Early one evening, about a month after she’d moved in, Sarah, exhausted after a long and difficult day in the shop without Briar, who was on holiday, to charm the overweight customers into clothes that fitted and flattered them, was chilling, watching a soap on the television when she was disturbed by a sharp knock on her door followed by a ring on the bell.
Gerry! Her mind shrieked. She had not seen him since she had moved – she hadn’t seen anyone, she’d been so busy. But if it was him, he would be sorry.
The bell rang again, urgently. It was still light and she tiptoed to the front door to peer through the spy-hole to check that it wasn’t Gerry. It was not.
A man of about her own age stood frowning at her on the doorstep. His brown hair was ruffled as if he’d been racking his hands through it. It was obvious from the hard expression in his eyes and the tight lines round his mouth that he was extremely annoyed.
‘Is it true,’ he addressed her firmly, ‘that the Blakes have sold this house to you?’
‘Yes, they have. I’ve only recently moved in,’ she said with a slight smile.
‘I’m afraid that they had no right to sell it to you,’ he said, and she saw he was fighting to control his anger. ‘They promised it to me. I’ll be seeing my solicitor in the morning.’
Five
Sarah shut the front door in his face in panic. What right had this man to accost her like that on her own doorstep? Was he some maniac who’d called on her at random? Some unfortunate mental patient who had forgotten to take his medication? There had been a man wandering round the Crescent some years ago who’d terrorised the elderly by denouncing them as Communist spies whom he had just reported to the authorities.
If only she could control the underlying fear that rampaged like an invasive weed through her determination to start a new life. Was she to be plagued for the rest of her life by barmy middle-aged men?
The bell rang again, sharp and strident, making her jump. She fled into the kitchen at the back of the house, her hands balled into fists, as if ready to defend herself. She stared defiantly out into the garden, forcing herself to breathe deeply and rhythmically. She would not answer the bell again. It was the word ‘solicitor’ that had caused the fear. Had the Blakes – who she’d only recently met and didn’t know anything about them - done something dishonest? Sold her a house that didn’t belong to them? A house that belonged to this man who had come back – perhaps from some long trip abroad – to claim it?
Whatever would she do if they had? Everything had been done so quickly; she had just gone along with it in a sea of panic, desperately wanting to escape the pain of the collapse of her old life and start afresh. She couldn’t move back to the Crescent. That was sold now. If only Dan had stayed, none of this would have happened, but he had not, and she cursed him roundly. She would have to cope with this herself; it made her feel immeasurably lonely and rather scared. She’d ring Celine to ask for Rebecca – their company’s solicitor’s home number and get her to deal with it.
‘She’s away in Spain until next week, but don’t worry, he sounds like a nutter. Shall I come round and chase him off?’ Celine said cheerfully.
Sarah wanted her to come, but she didn’t want to become a needy bore to her; after all, Celine had been coping with her life alone forever. ‘No, don’t bother. He didn’t look too bad, well dressed, quite a pleasant face when he wasn’t scowling.’
‘That doesn’t mean that he’s safe. I’ll come round. I’ll bring my long scissors with me, snap them at his groin. That will shift him!’ She laughed.
Her cheerfulness made Sarah laugh, too. ‘I feel very chuffed with myself for moving and all, but just one thing like this can put me back. I hope he really is mad and that there isn’t a genuine problem with me owning the house.’
‘I’ll come round, and we’ll call the police if he’s dangerous. I suppose he might have mistaken the house. Was he drunk or perhaps suffering from memory loss?’
‘No, well, I don’t know. I slammed the door in his face.’
Celine was round in ten minutes, but rather to her disappointment the man had disappeared.
‘You should have brought your scissors round when Gerry came,’ Sarah said. Celine was the only person she could tell about Gerry without it being built into a leaning tower of gossip and innuendo, until it finally collapsed on top of her.
‘I’d have enjoyed that.’ Celine snapped her scissors in the air. ‘Done some radical cutting out.’
‘He said something like “they promised it to me”,’ Sarah said, wishing the sudden shock of his statement had not made her forget exactly what he had said. ‘What if it wasn’t theirs to sell, or they had already sold it to him but hadn’t got the money so sold it to me?’
‘Don’t panic until you have to,’ Celine advised. ‘Now I’m here I’ll stay a bit. He might come back.’
He did not, but the next evening, when Sarah returned from work feeling scratchy from a troubled night stressing about the complications of dealing with problems without Dan as he used to be beside her the door of the house beside hers whipped open and out he came.
‘Good evening,’ he said coldly, standing on the pavement beside her, slightly barring her way to her own front door. ‘Before you shut the door in my face again, I would like to talk to you.’
She regarded him with suspicion. He was dressed in a cream shirt and pale jeans. His face was lean, with a well-shaped mouth and slate-blue eyes. He did not look threatening, but he looked cross. He must be the man (whose name she had forgotten) whom Annie had said she’d have no trouble with.
He said. ‘My name is Robert Maynard. I live next door, as you see. Would you come in for a drink? I’ve something important to discuss with you.’
‘No, thank you. Whatever it is you want to say you can say to me here on the street.’ Fear crawled like ants over her body.
His face was creased with annoyance; drawstrings of lines tightening his mouth. He relaxed it a moment and it transformed his looks, making him appear more approachable though she warned herself not to be taken in by it. She must get away from him, but she was afraid to open her own door in case he pushed himself inside the house, trapping her there, while he continued with his insistence that her house was really his.
‘I’ve been working all day and I’m exhausted and I didn’t sleep well last night stressing about your threats..’ She glared at him. ‘Can’t you put whatever it is in a letter?’
‘No, I think it better to talk it through. The thing is…’ He glanced up the street, and Sarah guessed he wondered if he was being watched. Well, that was neighbours for you; they always wanted to know what was going on. She didn’t know any of them in the street yet; one or two had welcomed her, but she had no one to call on for protection if she needed it. She would not go into his house or let him into hers without someone else being there with her. She needed Celine with her scissors.
She said, to bring an end to it, ‘We’ll meet on mutual ground. I’ll see you at that coffee place on the corner in ten minutes.’
‘All right, but tell me your name first.’ He looked at her as if he would only deign to sit with her if he approved of her name.
‘Sarah Haywood.’
He nodded, turned sharply from her and marched back into his own house, shutting the door with a defiant thump. Sarah let herself in to her own house and dropped her bag in the hall. She was overcome with exhaustion and had been looking forward to slumping on the sofa with a glass of wine and listen to some soothing music. The last thing she wanted was to join him and no doubt be bullied by him.
She caught sight of her reflection in the oval mirror that hung in the hall. She needed more lipstick and her hair was anyhow. Though why should she mind? After all, this was not a date. It was her next-door neighbour, who would no doubt see her at her worst, putting out the rubbish or opening the door in her night clothes to take in a parcel. She brushed her hair just a little bit and put the slightest smear of lipstick on her mouth. She waited in the kitchen for a full fifteen minutes until she left her house to go to the coffee shop on the corner. She envisaged a foolish charade of them both leaving their houses at the same time. Perhaps even colliding on the doorstep. Would they walk down the street together, or on opposite sides of the road?
He was there at a table by the window. He jumped up when she arrived, relief chasing the irritation from his face. ‘You said ten minutes.’
‘I’m here now.’ She was hit by shyness. This was the first time she had sat alone with a man she didn’t know since Dan had left her. She felt like a gauche teenager and had a terrible temptation to giggle foolishly.
‘What can I get you?’ he demanded briskly, as if he did not want to waste time getting her anything.
‘Americano please with the milk on the side, I only like a splash in it.’ She wondered if she should pay for her own.
She watched him queue at the counter, saw the impatience bunch his face. He was obviously not a man who liked to be kept waiting. To her surprise she found herself wondering what he would be like as a lover, then seeing him glance at her she blushed and busied herself by trawling through her bag afraid her thoughts were dancing all over her face.
He came back with the coffees an espresso for him and her Americano and a small jug of milk balanced between them.
He sat down opposite her and said at once as if he had no time to waste. ‘I’ve lived next to the Blakes for ten years. They always promised me that if they sold their house, they would offer it to me first.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ She sipped her coffee with its splash of milk to hide her nerves, almost scalding herself in the process.
‘Well, they did. Now I come back to find that they have disappeared and that you have bought it.’ He sounded aggrieved, as if she had done it on purpose to annoy him.
‘They offered it to me,’ she said. ‘I met Annie at a lunch. She told me they wanted to sell it urgently to buy a house they had always wanted in France which had just come on to the market.’
‘But they promised it to me. I have the money. I would have bought it immediately. They should have let me know about it they have my mobile number and my email,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve tried to contact them but none of their contacts seem to work.’
The espresso had left a dark line on his upper lip. He had a nice mouth, soft and full. She must stop thinking like this; she was the mad one. He was her enemy. He wanted her house and she sensed that he usually got his own way. He was bad tempered and would no doubt be the neighbour from hell. She must not be so foolish and weak as to fancy him. It was only because she was without Dan that she was suffering from the ‘little woman’ syndrome, which she so despised, needing a man to protect her. She’d been used to a man in her life for too long and it was time to stand up for herself.
She said firmly, ‘I’m sorry about that. But I bought it in good faith. My solicitor’s away for a few days, but I’ll get her to confirm it as soon as she is back.’
‘I very much want the house for my orchids,’ he said, as if he was telling her of some world-changing reason which would make her feel obliged to give in to him.
‘In the house?’ she asked stupidly.
‘No. I was going to knock the two houses together and put a conservatory in your garden.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to do that sort of thing in the country? You’d get more space for your money
there.’
‘I don’t want to live in the country. I want to live here, in my house. It was in a terrible state when I bought it. It had to be completely gutted and started again. I spent ages, not to mention a lot of money, making it just as I want it.’ His eyes appeared to go darker with intensity.
‘So did I,’ she retorted, she hadn’t done much structural work but she’d spent quite a bit of money on decorating it. Fear and that stupid guilt that somehow it was her fault that he hadn’t got the house added to her agitation. ‘Paul and Annie wanted a quick sale and I needed to move so I bought it and did it up and I want to stay in it.’
He tried another tack. ‘Perhaps I could talk to your husband?’
‘I have not got a husband.’ She was assailed by panic and anger that Dan no longer cared about what happened to her; it was the fact that he no longer cared for her after all these years together that hurt the most. ‘I did this on my own, and I’m not giving it up now.’ To her humiliation, she felt tears rise in her throat. She took a savage sip from her cup, scalding her mouth again.
His voice became more gentle. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Well, you have,’ she said, getting up before she disgraced herself by bursting into tears in front of him. ‘It is my house, bought with my money and I will not let it go.’ She swept out of the coffee shop, but he followed her.
‘Surely we can come to some agreement?’ he said. ‘I’ll help you find another house. Just as nice, nicer even.’
She was aware that people in the coffee shop and passing by in the street had noticed them and she wondered what they would make of it. She imagined them taking sides when they knew the details, no doubt confirming Robert’s story, siding with him, as he was a familiar face in this area and perhaps a good friend with his neighbours.
She wanted to go home, shut her door and be safe in her house, but now this man had upset everything. He lived next door; they shared the same internal wall, the same garden brick wall with a line of trellis on top of it and as far as she could see it was his plants that were encroaching onto her side.