The Good Neighbour

by Beth Miller

  ‘Doesn’t it make things awful complicated? Having to get new documents for everyone?’

  ‘It was a lot easier than I thought, back in the UK. You just apply to change your name by deed poll. Did the same for the kids. Didn’t even need to get a court order.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how it’s done here. But Wade will know. He’s very well connected.’

  When they first walked out of the airport yesterday, it looked how Davey imagined America, with big shiny buildings, but then they drove a long way to Aunty Verna’s house and it looked like anywhere. Aunty Verna’s house was tall and had two lots of stairs and air conditioning. Davey didn’t know you could get that in a house, he thought only cars had it. He and Lola kept running outside with the thermometer, so they could watch the mercury rush up fast, then back inside again to watch it fall down.

  ‘Sweating’s good for you, gets all the toxins out,’ Davey’s mum said. She liked the heat.

  Outside the house was a wooden platform called a porch. There was a flowery swinging chair that he and Lola could both fit into. His mum and Aunty Verna sat on the steps in front of the chair.

  Davey had been thinking about names on the plane. ‘I want to be Milo,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a great choice,’ his mum said. ‘Milo Walker. It even sounds American.’ She put on an American accent. ‘Here we have Milo Walker on bass.’

  Lola couldn’t think of one. ‘Tilly?’ she said.

  Their mum told her that they couldn’t use the names of people they knew. She didn’t realise that Davey had chosen Milo because of MT. He grinned to himself.

  ‘How about Tammy?’ his mum said. ‘That’s like Tilly.’

  Lola shook her head.

  ‘Tessa?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This was a lot easier last time, Lola, when I just told you what it was going to be,’ Davey’s mum said.

  ‘Well, I tell you what, I always wanted a cute little girl,’ Aunty Verna said. ‘If I’da had one, I’da called her Breeze.’

  ‘Breeze?!’ Davey’s mum said.

  ‘Is that even a real name?’ Davey said.

  ‘I brought up three strapping boys, and I always wanted a little Breezey of my own.’

  Lola said, ‘I like it.’

  ‘It’s pretty, ain’t it?’ Aunty Verna said, pulling Lola onto her lap. ‘Well, I guess we have a winner. How you doing, Miss Breeze Walker?’

  ‘You Yanks sure do like a silly name,’ Davey’s mum said.

  ‘Least we stick to the ones we get given,’ Aunty Verna said, and his mum laughed.

  Milo told Adam his top five things about Escondido.

  Being able to walk.

  Playing with Nathan in Grape Day Park.

  The fireworks.

  Aunty Verna and the books.

  Sour cream.

  Grape Day Park was such a funny name. Nathan was used to it but it made Milo laugh every time. He made up his own bad joke about it. Q: What do you say when you go to the park? A: I’m having such a Grape Day!

  Nathan lived on Aunty Verna’s street, six doors along. Milo met him at their Fourth of July street party. In America they had fireworks then, instead of on Bonfire Night. It was only two days after they arrived so his mum said, ‘Isn’t it nice of them to give us such a wonderful welcome party!’ Every day since then Milo had been to the park with Nathan and some other boys who lived near. He loved playing football – soccer they called it – even though he wasn’t very good yet. He didn’t tell his friends he used not to be able to walk.

  They came to America from Terminal 5 at Heathrow. They got priority boarding and went through to the next bit, then his mum did a big sigh. She said, ‘Did I tell you I had a call from the doctor, Davey? He says you can walk now. It’s quite rare but they have cured you. It was those steroids, they think.’

  ‘OK. That’s good.’

  ‘It’s more than good, it’s fantastic! Stand up then. We don’t need this hunk of junk anymore.’ She pushed the wheelchair into a corner near the toilet, and a bit later they got on the plane without it. He knew that what she’d said didn’t sound right, but he was so pleased to be allowed to walk that he didn’t ask any questions. His legs were weird and shaky for a while, but they soon felt better. He and Lola each had their own little TV screen on the plane and they could choose any fizzy drink they liked.

  Milo knew Breeze would take ages to remember all the new names. But his mum seemed more relaxed than when they were in England. She didn’t shout if Breeze said ‘Davey’ instead of Milo. She didn’t even make a fuss when Aunty Verna accidentally gave Breeze milk before bedtime. But she was worried all the time about Breeze’s headaches. Breeze said the day they arrived that her head hurt, but that was after they’d been in an aeroplane for ages, and Breeze had drunk four different kinds of Fanta: orange, red fruits, icy lemon, and mango and passion fruit. Now whenever Breeze looked tired or was upset about something, their mum said, ‘Oh dear, have you got a headache, little one?’ and gave her Tylenol which was American Calpol. ‘I’m going to take you to the doctors soon, we need to get to the bottom of these bad heads.’ Breeze never said she didn’t have a headache because she liked getting cuddled and she liked medicine. She said Tylenol was even nicer than Calpol.

  They’d left a lot of things behind again. It didn’t matter about the American flag, because you could get them everywhere here. And he’d got his clothes, and Waffles. But he missed his books. Aunty Verna said if he made a list of his favourites, she would replace them. He wrote down twenty-three books and she laughed and said she was not made of dollar bills but if he narrowed it down to his top ten she would take him to Barnes & Noble at the Gateway Shopping Center. It was tough to get the list down to ten because so many were series and you needed all the books. He was still working on the list.

  The food here was different. The bread was amazing, really sweet. You hardly needed any butter on it, it tasted nice enough without. Milo’s new favourite food was sour cream. The day they arrived, Aunty Verna made them jacket potatoes with sour cream. She called them ‘baked potatoes’. Breeze didn’t like them but Milo thought he had never had anything so delicious. ‘If I’d known, I could have given you sour cream back in England,’ his mum said. Milo couldn’t believe that he had spent all these years without it.

  Chapter 27

  Sandy

  SANDY FELT LIGHT here, like being on holiday. There was much less to do, less responsibility. Verna was so good to them. She’d made up their rooms beautifully – Sandy and Breeze in one large room together, Milo in his own cute room. Verna told Sandy not to even think about apartment-hunting for a while, that they should stay cosy with her. Fact was, as Verna herself said, this was a good time to land at her door. She’d only just seen off the last of her boys – his work had taken him to San Francisco – and was itching for someone to look after. Sandy was thrilled to be that someone. It was wonderful to get a bit of mothering.

  Sandy and Verna had kept in touch via Christmas cards, and more recently by email. But they hadn’t actually seen each other for thirty-five years, since Sandy was a child of about eight. Verna would have been in her early twenties then. Sandy had a clear memory of her older, glamorous cousin visiting them in Eastbourne.

  ‘Your house was not in a good state of repair,’ Verna said, when Sandy asked what she remembered of that trip. It was early evening, a week after their arrival, and the two women were sitting outside the house on the front step, which was what everyone did in this street. Every so often Verna called out ‘hi’ to someone. The kids were playing catch with some neighbourhood kids along the road, just about in sight.

  Sandy didn’t like thinking about her old house. She said instead, ‘Are we sure about Breeze for Lola? It sounds like it should be the name of some fragile little thing, and you know I love her, but …’

  ‘She ain’t exactly delicate, is she?’

  Both women laughed.

  ‘It’s just a bit of puppy fat,’ V
erna went on. ‘Cute name like that might inspire her, anyhow.’

  This was a terrific town. The climate was gorgeous, for a start. During the day it was far hotter than it ever was back in England, but in the evenings, like now, it was perfect shirtsleeve weather. From the moment they arrived Sandy felt herself start to uncurl, like some kind of reptile. The people here were friendly, the streets safe for kids. She was sure that even if Andy remembered she had an American cousin, she’d never mentioned her whereabouts. For the first time in she didn’t know when, she felt safe. The last two nights she’d even slept right through, hadn’t needed to do her usual panicked check to see that the kids were OK.

  Verna handed her a can of Coke, and she raised it in a toast. Enjoy the moment, Sandykins, she told herself. This was a good place to stop.

  She leaned back against the step and when she was ready, said, ‘Go on then, what were you saying about our house, that time you visited?’

  ‘It was dirty,’ Verna said straight away. She’d been waiting to be asked. ‘You put something down on the counter, it came back sticky. The door handles, I didn’t like to touch. The dust made me sneeze. And everything was broken, you didn’t have a single chair in that kitchen that was safe to sit on. Your mother was a funny one.’

  Verna’s mother and Sandy’s mother were sisters, though they’d never been close. ‘Whenever Bernadette’s name came up, that’s what my ma would say: “She’s a funny one.” You can believe that she said it when you know what happened. To do that to your child. What were you, just fourteen? To do that, and let your daughter find you, like that. Well! A funny one don’t seem to cover it, in my opinion. Even when you were a bitty thing, your ma left you on your own all the time, you know. She did it that time when I was staying, so I assumed I was meant to look after you. But Bernadette said, “Oh, no need, she can look after herself!” You were just a little kid!’

  ‘She had to go to work,’ Sandy said. She shaded her eyes against the evening sun and squinted down the street, trying to see Milo. There he was, in the middle of a group, playing some kind of tag. It was fantastic to see him running around like other kids.

  ‘That’s right, she was always high-tailing it off to that department store. I often thought about you when I came back home. Wondered how you were doing in that filthy, cold house.’

  ‘Was it really that bad?’

  ‘Honey, she never cleaned! After she did you know what, you went to stay with your friend, and I think it turned out to be the best thing for you. Your ma wasn’t the most caring lady.’

  ‘She could be, sometimes.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  When Gina dropped them at the airport, it was immediately clear to Cath that the wheelchair was now more trouble than it was worth. As they hurried through Heathrow, she couldn’t suppress the feeling that everything she’d worked so hard for was now utterly futile. Davey would never consent to a biopsy and, anyway, what would be the point of one? It was time to move on.

  Sandy wasn’t worried about money – her savings were in good shape. And thanks to the provisional diagnosis they’d get UK disability benefits, sent to her via Gina, for six months, until the next assessment was due. There was nothing like those sorts of benefits in the States, but the diagnosis had got them a few perks, such as a new computer, and a free access pass for attractions and national parks.

  Soon as they were properly settled, she would return the triathlon money, every penny. She’d only borrowed it to tide her over, pending the house sale. She reassured herself that she would even send back the money she’d borrowed from her last race in Harrogate.

  The savings wouldn’t last for ever, of course. But the children were getting older, Verna would help look after them, and Sandy could get a job. She could probably find work at a private hospital. Verna’s son Wade knew someone who could help with getting ID and other important papers for them all. Maybe even a nursing certificate. It would be so fantastic to be nursing again. She felt liberated at the thought.

  Away from the Heathrow crowds, Cath helped Davey out of the wheelchair and pushed it into a quiet corner near a toilet. She held his hand and together with Lola they ran to the boarding gate. He couldn’t stop smiling.

  She still couldn’t bear to think that she herself had called him that terrible insult. Yes, he was provoking, and yes, she needed to work on her self-control. But getting rid of the chair would remove any temptation to repeat her mistake.

  And Davey was clearly getting much better at walking. Verna was right; she’d said it was a kind of miracle, and it was, when you thought about it. ‘Can’t believe it,’ Verna had said, when she picked them up from the airport. Though she’d never met Davey before, she’d seen plenty of photos of him in his wheelchair. She led them to her car, asking about it all the way, how did it happen? What on earth it meant?

  ‘You know,’ Cath said, ‘in all my years of nursing, I’ve learned maybe one important thing, and that is that doctors don’t really know anything.’

  Verna laughed. ‘That’s true, honey.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to really prove to them that someone’s ill, otherwise they won’t listen till it’s too late. Other times, they make stuff up, because they hate saying that they don’t know.’

  ‘It’s kind of a miracle,’ Verna said, reaching into the backseat to ruffle Davey’s hair.

  ‘It is. So, tell me about Wade. Is that girlfriend of his still messing him about?’

  ‘Oh glory, she is. Let me tell you what she did last week …’

  Breeze broke away from the gaggle of children she’d been playing with, and trotted down the street towards them. ‘Ah, here’s my honey,’ Verna said, and Breeze snuggled into her arms. ‘What’s new, Breezey?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Breeze said, and began to suck her thumb, a new habit. Sandy knew she should try and do something about it, but god knows, it didn’t seem all that important in the great scheme of things. She was more worried about Breeze’s recurring headaches. She started to ask Verna how they’d go about signing up with the local paediatrician, but she’d barely said a few words when Breeze unplugged her thumb and said, ‘I don’t want to go home.’

  ‘England, do you mean? No, of course you don’t, lovie.’ Sandy reached across and stroked Breeze’s hair. ‘This is our home now.’

  Breeze looked at Sandy with wide eyes. ‘Davey said.’

  ‘Milo, you mean? What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. He said it to Nathan. He wants to use Nathan’s mum’s phone.’

  The two women exchanged glances. Verna shook her head slightly, meaning don’t panic, don’t get upset. ‘I wonder who he wants to call,’ Sandy said, making a heroic effort to keep calm, though her breath was running short. ‘Did he say?’

  Breeze didn’t answer. Sandy sat up straighter. ‘Why don’t you whisper it to me, lovie?’ she asked. Breeze leaned towards Sandy and said, ‘Nathan is going to let Milo send a text to Minette.’

  Sandy shivered. The evening heat seemed to have cooled right down.

  ‘Now don’t you worry your breezy little brain about that,’ Verna said. ‘You run along and play now, let us do the worrying, OK?’

  Breeze nodded, and ran back to the other children, thumb in mouth.

  ‘Five fucking minutes. That’s all I get.’ Sandy could feel the tears starting. To have come this far, and to fail at this final stage. ‘Five fucking minutes of peace. Christ, Verna, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Well you can watch your mouth to start with, darlin’. Ain’t nothing ever been solved by cursing.’ Verna put her hand over Sandy’s. ‘Is Minette that neighbour of yours?’

  Sandy nodded. ‘I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how to stop Milo from contacting people, using the internet, it was hard enough before but he’s getting older, harder to control. How the hell can I stop him?’

  ‘You don’t try, honey.’

  Sandy looked at Verna, puzzled. ‘What do you mean? I have to try!’

  �
��This Minette, how is she a risk? If she knows what you’re running away from, why would she be a worry?’

  ‘She believes Andy’s version of events,’ Sandy said quietly.

  ‘That ain’t too sisterly of her. I’d like to have a word with that little person. Well honey, you can’t control Milo, OK? So you give up trying now. I speak as someone with three boys and I tell you, I weren’t in charge of what they did since the longest time.’

  ‘If I can’t control him, Verna, I am never going to get any peace. Maybe I should talk to Nathan’s parents? Which one is Nathan anyway?’ Sandy squinted down the street but the children were now too distant to see properly.

  ‘If not Nathan, it’ll be someone else. Milo’s only going to get more strong-willed. You give that up now, you hear? You’re going about this wrong.’

  There weren’t many people Sandy would let tell her how to manage her life, but Verna was one. ‘Let me guess. You’re going to say there’s more than one way to skin a cat.’

  ‘I am.’ Verna took a swig from her can of Coke. ‘Look, you can’t stop Milo from talking to whomsoever he wants. In fact, I am surprised you don’t know that by now. Kids don’t want to do what you tell ’em.’

  ‘Except my Breeze.’

  ‘Yep. She’s a mommy’s gal all right. She reminds me of another little girl who always did what her mommy told her …’ Verna grinned, showing large teeth. ‘You need to go at this from the other end. You need to make sure this Minette person don’t do anything if Milo does manage to contact her. Does he even have her number?’

  ‘I don’t know, he could have, or he might be able to find it.’

  ‘Can you warn her off? Encourage her to keep her big nose out?’

  Sandy sat up straight. ‘There is something that might work. What would be the absolute fastest way I could mail a photo to the UK?’

  ‘Email, of course.’

  ‘No, I want to send a physical photo. It will have a lot more impact.’