The Good Neighbour

by Beth Miller

  ‘You weren’t bad, but his acting was appalling. I thought something might be going on. Then I knew for sure that day we met them on the beach and you acted so weird.’

  ‘Abe, I’m so, so, so, sorry.’

  ‘I did give you a few chances to tell me, but you didn’t want to take the hint.’

  ‘If I could only turn back the clock …’

  ‘Shh now, shh,’ he said, putting his arms round her. ‘It’s all over now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, emphatically. ‘It’s been over for a long time. Do you believe me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you … hate me?’

  ‘What?’ He sat back a little way from her, and lifted her chin, made her look at him. ‘How can you think that? I love you, you know that.’

  ‘But I’ve done this awful thing.’

  ‘What is it he says, at the end of Brief Encounter?’

  Minette started crying again. ‘Oh Abe, don’t.’

  ‘Go on, tell me. I’m pretty sure you know it by heart.’

  ‘He says, “Thank you for coming back to me.”’

  ‘Yep. That’s me. The boring husband. That’s how I feel.’

  ‘Are you serious? You’re not angry with me? You don’t want to split up?’

  Abe laughed. ‘No, do you?’

  ‘Jesus, no!’

  ‘So, what is it that we’re expecting in the post?’

  Minette explained quickly about the photos. She toned it down a bit so it sounded like there were just a few. She faltered slightly when she got to the bit where Andy had seen them, and Abe winced. ‘Still,’ he said, recovering quickly, ‘it’s not like his wife is a model of domestic stability.’

  ‘They could turn up. I don’t know if she’s got them still, or what.’

  ‘Right. Well, just so you know, I’ll be really happy not to see the photos, OK? I’ve managed not to create many visual images of this thing in my head, so far. I’d like to keep it that way. So if an unexpected email or package comes for me, I think I’ll get you to open it first.’

  Minette had never felt so relieved in her life. She put her arms round him and hid her face against his shoulder.

  ‘So is that everything?’ he said. ‘No other unexploded bombs secreted away? No pregnancies where we’ll need a DNA test to find out which of us is the father?’

  ‘I’ve got my period,’ Minette said. ‘And we, er, took precautions.’

  ‘La la la!’ Abe said, reminding her of Gina doing the same, when she refused to hear anything unpleasant about Cath. He covered his ears. ‘Trying to avoid any visual images, remember?’

  ‘Yes, sorry.’ She sat up. ‘Christ, I can’t believe that you’re not angry.’

  ‘I have been angry, of course I have. And really upset. But all this business with Cath and Andy and her kids, it’s made me think a lot about what’s important, and what isn’t.’

  ‘Abe, I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘That’s true. No, don’t be silly. You’re amazing, and clever, and kind, and interesting, and much too pretty for me.’

  ‘What about when I’m old and plain?’

  ‘We’ll renegotiate the contract at that point. Listen.’ For the first time his face went completely serious. ‘We’ve been through a turbulent time this last year; it’s not surprising that something had to give. You’ve always been so sensible, so steady. Maybe too steady. You know that my parents think you’re perfect, and that’s not an accolade they’ve ever given anyone: you’re up there ahead of Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Nigella.’

  ‘Oh god, your parents.’ The thought of losing their good opinion set Minette off crying again.

  Abe smoothed the tears from her cheeks. ‘It’s rather exciting to find out that you’re more reckless than I thought. More reckless than you thought as well, perhaps.’

  ‘How can you be so bloody understanding?’

  ‘I’m practising the rakish, libertarian attitude that goes with being a vineyard owner. Also, let’s face it, Liam’s a force of nature, isn’t he? If he’d have been up for it, I’d probably have slept with him.’

  Minette threw her arms round Abe again. She recognised that as a line he had prepared, and she loved him for it. ‘You are an amazing man.’

  He kissed her hair, and said quietly, ‘Yeah, well, one time only, OK? I won’t be so understanding a second time.’

  ‘Promise. Cross my heart.’

  They sat still for a moment, holding each other close, and into the silence they heard Tilly in the kitchen, trying out all her words. ‘Mama! Dud-ud! Today! Pretty!’

  They smiled at each other.

  ‘See? That’s us she’s talking about,’ Abe said. ‘We’re her Mama and Dud-ud. She needs us both. Let’s try not to fuck it up.’

  Let’s try not to fuck it up. As a mantra to live by, Minette preferred it to ‘we’ll all be dead in a hundred years’. They got up, and went to see if Tilly had finished her breakfast.

  Acknowledgements

  This has been a funny year, and I have relied on the comfort of friends. Thanks are particularly due to Alison Hutchins, Anne Lavender-Jones, Gerry Warner, Jo Bloom, Rachel Wojtulewski, Rosy Muers-Raby and Trish Joscelyne, for being there.

  For bigging-up of my first book beyond the call of duty, thanks to Lucy Wilkes, Robyn Adams, Sam Knowles, and my fellow writer (and mother-in-law), Heather Castillo.

  For their helpful comments on various drafts of this book, and for many other kindnesses, thank you to Saskia Gent and Juliette Mitchell. For doing his debugging thang on the first draft, thanks to Tim Ward. For suggesting I remove a character who was getting in the way, thanks to my agent, Judith Murdoch (she was right, of course). For ongoing writing encouragement, support, and extra commas, thank you, as always, to my writing buddies – Liz Bahs, Clare Best, and Alice Owens. For gentle and helpful edits – oh, and for publishing the book – thanks to Gillian Green and Emily Yau at Ebury.

  For telling me everything I needed to know about the storage of blood and creatine kinase, thanks to Dr Catherine Wykes. And on the subject of research: of the accounts I read by people who had a parent with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, the most useful was Sickened, by Julie Gregory.

  For giving me more time to write, thanks to the owners of Viva Lewes. For helping me seek new directions, thanks to Claire Kirtland and Mark Bridge.

  For being so proud of me, thanks to my children. I will never forget the looks on your faces when the first copy of When We Were Sisters arrived in the post.

  Finally, for all the loving support, the staggering levels of belief, the confidence-boosting, the sheer delight in my achievements, thank you to John. And thanks to the God of Good Things, for sending me John.

  Reading Group Questions

  Both Minette and Cath have different parenting styles in this book. In what ways are they good mothers? And can bad behaviour be excused if it’s in the best interest of the child?

  Both Minette and Cath’s characters in The Good Neighbour have their flaws. Do you think you have to like the protagonists for a story to work well? Do you think there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters in this book, or is that too simple a classification?

  Was Minette naive to trust Cath so much? Was it a positive or a negative that Minette had learned to be less trusting by the end of the book?

  How much do you think Davey understood about what was going on? Do you think his decision to reach out to Minette was one of bravery or fear? Or both?

  For Cath, her identity and that of her children are closely linked with their names. That plus the diagnosis – and in Cath’s case, lack of diagnosis – of their illnesses. Do you think names/labels are important? Do you think the book would have played out differently without them?

  Do you feel sympathy towards Cath? Did your opinion of her change after finding out about her diagnosis? Does this excuse the way she behaved with her children?

  Cath’s quick-fire decision to take Lola and run, leaving Milo
behind, was one of desperation and panic. Do you think, had she not been taken by surprise, she would have taken a different course of action?

  This is a story that could continue long after its ending. What do you think happens to the characters in the next few years? Will Andy be reunited with Lola? Or will Cath be successful in forging a new life for herself and her daughter?

  One could say that the meaning and significance of the word ‘neighbour’ has changed drastically over the last few decades. What do you think this book has to say about community and privacy? Can you truly have both?

  What do you think of the phlosophy, ‘We’ll all be dead in a hundred years’? Is it a positive or negative outlook to have on life?

  Author questionnaire with Beth Miller

  1. What inspired you to write this novel?

  I was reading an article in the local paper about a woman who’d run lots of marathons. Her child was very ill, and she was raising money for the relevant charity. I think most people reading such an article would probably feel sorry for the mother and child, but my first thought was, hey, what if she was pretending, and her child wasn’t sick after all? Then I felt ashamed of myself and channelled the bad thought into a fictional story.

  2. Were you previously familiar with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and/or Munchausen by proxy? What did your research entail?

  I’ve been interested in Munchausen syndrome by proxy since I first heard about it as a psychology student. That someone – often a mother or a nurse – would deliberately harm a child by pretending that they were ill was fascinating to me. It goes against all expectations of the caring female. I read several accounts from people who’d been brought up by someone with the syndrome. These were awful. Unimaginable – that the person who should protect you was the one who caused you to suffer. I couldn’t find any accounts written by people with the syndrome. I imagine it’s not something you acknowledge to yourself, or anyone else. It is a hidden thing. I wanted to try and get inside the head of someone like that. To write Cath, I had to think very hard about why she behaved as she did. As I’m a wishy-washy liberal type, my key question was what had happened to her that might have caused her to be like that? I realised that the behaviour must serve some kind of function for her; that it must soothe her stress and anxiety, and therefore must be very compelling to her.

  Duchenne I didn’t know anything about initially. I was thinking about what Davey was like, when I heard a mother being interviewed about her son’s Duchenne on Woman’s Hour. She said that within a fortnight, her son had gone from being able to walk down the garden, to being in a wheelchair. The awful speed of the deterioration. Cath would know about Duchenne from her nursing and would know how to forge the blood markers that test for it. A doctor friend answered all my questions about the marker (creatine kinase), and the storage of blood.

  3. What do you want people to take away from The Good Neighbour?

  I hope they all start to suspect their neighbours of dodgy doings. OK, not that. Maybe something profound about the mystery and complexity of human behaviour? Or perhaps, that diagnosis is a starting point, not an end in itself? I feel very in tune with Andy when he says to Minette that even if it’s true that Cath has Munchausen by proxy, it doesn’t actually explain anything. It’s just a description – all the same questions are still there even if you have a label.

  Really, I just hope people enjoy it as a story about families and secrets.

  4. Your last novel When We Were Sisters deals with a range of subjects, from those explored in The Good Neighbour such as dysfunctional families and adultery, to others such as religion and the clash of cultures. Did you find inspiration from your previous writing or do you start each new book with a blank slate?

  You’re right, I do seem slightly obsessed with adultery. Hmm.

  As befits a first novel, When We Were Sisters had a lot of autobiographical elements (though not the adultery). But The Good Neighbour is entirely fictional. As far as I know, I’ve never met anyone with Munchausen by proxy. The odd thing is that characters in both books spend quite a lot of time in hospitals. I don’t understand why, because I know nothing about hospitals and have scarcely ever been in one, except to have my children. Maybe there’s a frustrated doctor in me, trying to get out. Or an evil nurse [maniacal laugh].

  5. Many writers say that their characters are often based on aspects of themselves. Would you agree? Would you compare yourself to either Cath or Minette? (Or indeed, any other character from The Good Neighbour?)

  Like Minette, I am very short-sighted. And of course I am young and beautiful. Also like her, when I had children, I found the baby stage a bit exhausting and unexciting. But that might be a fairly universal feeling. The few people I met who seemed to breeze through that stage, like Cath, were people I greatly envied. I think I’m probably most like Abe. Dorky but essentially sound.

  6. How do you plan your writing? Were there any surprises in terms of plot, or had you had it mapped out from the beginning?

  I wrote When We Were Sisters into a void, having no idea what would happen. That might be why it took twelve years to write. In a reaction to that, I planned The Good Neighbour before I started it. Though it changed a lot, it was nice to have a road-map. The ending is very different to my original plan. When I read it through with the first ending in place, I was furious with the rotten author who’d written such a dystopic conclusion. I rewrote it straight away. I like happy-ish endings where people forgive other people.

  7. Do you have a favourite time of day to write? A favourite place?

  My preferred time of day – between 2 and 9pm – is incompatible with family life. I just start to feel inspired when I have to down tools to collect children from school, make tea, etc. I’ve learned to force myself to write during school hours and snatch other time when I can. For instance, I am writing these answers while sitting in my children’s martial arts class. My favourite place to write is at my desk in the attic. But I also love writing on trains.

  8. Have you always wanted to write? What other jobs have you had? And if you weren’t a novelist, what would your dream career be?

  I’ve had a lot of jobs. I’ve been a psychology lecturer, a journalist, a sexual health trainer, a creative learning manager (still not sure what that is), an alcohol counsellor, a volunteer coordinator and an audio-typist. I’ve worked in a bread shop, a chemist’s, and a stationery shop. My worst job was temping in a stockbrokers, where my sole task was to put thousands of old newspapers into date order. My best job was working on a computer magazine, the long-defunct MicroDecision, because it was the old-school days of journalism when everyone smoked in the office and went out for three-hour lunches. This makes me sound contemporaneous with Evelyn Waugh, which is odd as I am only twenty-three.

  I told a teacher when I was seven that I wanted to be a poet when I grew up, and she kindly said, ‘I’m sure you will be, dear.’ She was wrong; I am a terrible poet. I loved writing at school, but then got out of the habit and didn’t start again till I was in my thirties. In all my many jobs, though, I always made sure that writing was involved. If I wasn’t writing handouts and booklets, it was newsletters. I love a good newsletter.

  I now mix writing books with teaching writing and book coaching. My dream career is exactly what I do, except much better paid.

  9. Who are your favourite authors? What are you reading at the moment?

  I’ve waited so long for someone to ask about my favourite authors that when it finally happened, I went temporarily blank. Like Rob in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, when he was asked his top five records. OK. In alphabetical order, they are Douglas Adams, Jane Austen, Judy Blume, Laurie Colwin, Monica Dickens, Nora Ephron, Margaret Forster, William Goldman, Howard Jacobson, David Lodge, John O’Farrell, Anne Tyler, Molly Weir and PG Wodehouse.

  I’m a member of a slightly niche group called ‘Debut Novelists aged over forty’ and I’m currently trying to read all their books. There’s more than thirty of us in
the group, so it’s taking a little while. Some cracking reads in amongst that lot, though.

  10. Which book do you wish you could have written? Which classic have you always meant to read and never got round to?

  The book I wish I’d written is Heartburn, by Nora Ephron.

  There are so many classics I have never got round to. Ulysses, of course, but also Crime & Punishment, Catch-22, Don Quixote… I suppose I haven’t read them because they didn’t much appeal. The one I would like to read is War & Peace, because I love Anna Karenina, and I imagine it’s quite similar, right?

  Enjoyed The Good Neighbour?

  Read on for a taster of Beth Miller’s

  WHEN WE WERE SISTERS

  ‘I never think of Laura as my step-sister, but that’s what she is.’

  Once they were the best of friends, inseparable as only teenage girls can be.

  That is until Miffy’s Jewish father runs off with Laura’s Catholic mother and both of their families imploded – as well as Laura’s intense relationship with Miffy’s brother …

  Twenty years on, they’re all about to meet again …

  Also available from Ebury Press

  Melissa

  24 FEBRUARY 2003

  I turn on the stairs when I hear that name.

  Miffy.

  Not my real name. A nickname. No one has used it for more than twenty years.

  Laura stands framed in the doorway of her room. I’d know her anywhere. I try to focus on her face, on her dark eyes with their thick lashes, but against my will my own eyes keep sliding down to her stomach.

  She raises her hand as if she’s going to wave, then the hand changes direction and smoothes her hair, the lovely sleek black hair I used to envy. Cut shorter now. She’s still beautiful, though not the way she was at fourteen.

  Last night I deliberately avoided her. Said hello but nothing more. It didn’t look too obvious. After a death, normal rules don’t apply.