The New Neighbors

by Simon Lelic

  So, yeah, me and my mum, we’re doing OK. I’m not suggesting we’ll ever have a model relationship. All I’m really trying to say is that we’re better than we used to be. Probably better than we’ve ever been. And it’s not that I haven’t always loved her. It’s just . . . I don’t know. It feels easier to love her now, that’s all. And it’s safer now that my father’s gone too.

  My father.

  I have to remind myself every so often that he really is. Gone, I mean. Because he’s going to prison, I know that, and I know he’s never getting out but I sometimes wonder whether it wouldn’t have been better if I’d actually killed him. I thought I would have to, at one stage, and when I came face-to-face with him in our bedroom I genuinely tried. I couldn’t stop myself, the way I couldn’t stop the anger when I confronted Sean Payne. But whereas Elsie’s father was in no state to defend himself, my father swatted me aside so easily it was blind luck I was able to finish what I started. And this way . . . what was the word my father used? Poetic. That’s it. It’s poetic that he’ll be found guilty of precisely the type of crimes he committed. I try to remember that whenever I feel afraid. Whenever I wonder whether the police are still watching me, for example, or when I succumb to a sudden rush of guilt. It’s right what’s happening to my father. He killed my sister. If he could have he would have killed me. And if I hadn’t done what I did, nobody would have had the chance to impose on him the punishment he’s always deserved.

  —

  BUT YOU KNOW what? I don’t want to think about my father. What I want to think about is what I started to, before I allowed myself to get distracted.

  Jack and I, we’re in a flat now. When we put the house on the market, it was sold by the first weekend, and now we’re just waiting for the solicitors. I’m disappointed, obviously, because had the circumstances when we found the house been different it might have had a chance of becoming our home. Our forever house, just like on those cheesy TV shows. But it’s served its purpose and frankly the apartment we’re living in is a thousand times more practical. It’s purpose-built, two bedrooms, with a little Juliet balcony and access to outside space. We’re only renting for the time being but living here has made us realize that a place like this is all the three of us really need.

  No, I’m not pregnant. And no, it’s still not likely that I’ll ever be. I mean maybe one day but not just yet. For the time being I want to relish this feeling I’ve got that this family I have around me right now is as perfect already as I ever could have wished.

  Officially Elsie lives with her aunt. Her aunt’s OK, sort of, certainly not as bad as her brother was. But despite Elsie’s growing up practically around the corner from her, she’s only ever met Elsie half a dozen times. And she admits she only took Elsie in for the money. Her father didn’t have much but there was a surprising amount of equity in their old house. And the way all the legal stuff worked out is that the cash went with Elsie to her new guardian. So Elsie’s aunt, she’s happy enough. All the more so given that Elsie spends most of her time these days with us.

  And we are, we’re like a family, and that’s the point I set out to make. My real family was broken, defective right from the start. But who’s to say what constitutes a family anyway? Ours, it’s nontraditional, a bit like our Christmas is likely to be. We each have our roles but the best part is that none of them are fixed. Take Jack and me. We’re the parents, mostly, but sometimes we’re also the kids. Jack to me is like my husband but he’s also my very best friend. To Elsie Jack acts like some wise old uncle but I suspect she sees him more as an overprotective brother. A good one, though, a kind one—and the knowledge that there is kindness in men is something it’s important that Elsie’s able to believe.

  As for me, I do my best to be whatever Elsie needs me to be. It’s hard sometimes, given this secret that will always exist between us, and I can’t help worrying that if we spend too much time together, one day she’ll turn out the way I have. Although, who knows? It’s just possible it will be the other way round. Because it’s like I said: it’s not always Jack and me who play the parents. I tend to assume that it’s my role to look out for Elsie. But like an angel sent by my little sister, maybe it’s really Elsie who’s here to save me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Love and thanks to my wife, Sarah, without whom this novel simply wouldn’t have been written. Frankly, she deserves a coauthor’s credit on the front cover. Thanks as well to my mum, dad, sister, Matt, Sue, Kate and Nij—family, all. Kristina Astrom and Jane McLoughlin were two of the earliest readers of this novel, and I cannot thank them enough for their generosity and their time. A special mention, too, to Jess Lavender and all at Brighton Shotokan Karate Club for helping me work out my writerly frustrations—of which, as ever, there were a few. Finally, thank you to everyone at Berkley, Viking and Felicity Bryan Associates, Amanda Bergeron, Katy Loftus and Caroline Wood above all.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  I’ve always wanted to write a ghost story. I read them religiously when I was young. Still do, in fact. I love that tradition of curling up with something creepy in the run up to Christmas, with a story so chilling even the open fire can’t ward off the shivers. Perhaps another sip of wine will help—or perhaps the alcohol will only further blur the line between what is real and what is fiction, and get you twitching all the more at the creaking floorboards, the clunking pipe that sounds so exactly like a footstep on the stairs . . .

  When I came up with the idea for The New Neighbors, a ghost story is how I imagined it would turn out. My starting premise was a young couple house hunting in the cutthroat London market (my wife and I have been in exactly that position ourselves), and somehow managing to secure a house they know they shouldn’t really be able to afford. It is a mess, full of the former owner’s old belongings, but it is theirs. It is almost too good to be true, they start to think. As though someone must have wanted them to have it.

  All of which leads to the question: why? Who wanted them to have it? And why did the vendor leave in such a hurry? More importantly, what is it about the house, once the young couple move in, that feels . . . wrong? There is nothing concrete they can point to. A slightly strange smell, perhaps. A few too many corners where the sunlight doesn’t seem to penetrate. But mostly, it is just a feeling, a growing recognition that nothing in life comes that easy. As Jack puts it in the novel, “Everything worth having has a price attached. It’s just a question of how and when you’re made to pay.”

  I never start a novel knowing how it will end. But all the pointers from this initial setup seemed to direct me to one conclusion: there is something sinister at work here. Something ghostly. And at first, I was delighted by the prospect. I was writing that ghost story I always wanted to, finally.

  Except . . .

  Very quickly, I came to the same conclusion I always reach when I set out to write something unworldly. A ghost, in whatever guise, never quite feels enough somehow, at least to me. And as much as I enjoy a good supernatural yarn, the stories that really scare me are invariably rooted in reality. It is what people do that genuinely terrifies me, not ghosts—which is why every novel I have ever written has turned out to be almost hyper real. And, in the end, that is exactly what happened with The New Neighbors. Sure, I could allow the young couple to think there is something supernatural at work. And if I could get the reader wondering the same thing, so much the better. But maybe, rather than a ghost, the real villain should be flesh and blood. Not a phantom, a spectre, or a ghoul—but, instead, something far worse.

  Besides all of which, what are ghosts anyway but the things that haunt us? Our shame, guilt, remorse, fear. Our secrets. Our pasts. All the things we’ve endured in our lives that we spend so much of our time trying to escape. So, in that sense, I suppose, The New Neighbors is precisely the sort of story I originally envisaged. There are no cats turning into zombies by chapter three (more’s the pity, some would say), but ther
e are ghosts, of a kind. The most terrifying kind of all, I would argue. And I can only hope that, after reading the novel, you agree.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Secrets and trust are at the heart of this novel. Do you think Syd was justified in lying to Jack? What about the things Jack kept from Syd—were his lies any less of a betrayal?

  How did the dueling point of view structure influence your reading of the novel and your opinions about the two main characters?

  What connections can you draw between Elsie as a child and Syd as an adult? What did you initially make of their relationship?

  Discuss the character of Syd. What were your first impressions of her? Did your opinions about her change as the novel unfolded?

  How did you feel about Syd and Jack as a couple? How would you describe the quality of their relationship?

  “Even now, if you gave me the chance . . . I’m not sure I’m strong enough. I’ve just never, ever been strong enough.” How do you feel about Syd’s mother in this moment? Is she an unforgivable character, or a victim herself? Does she redeem herself in the end? Why do you think she stayed with Syd’s father?

  What do you think of the neighborhood in this story? What roles, if any, do Syd and Jack’s neighbors play in Elsie’s abuse and Sean Payne’s murder?

  What do you think of Jack’s relationship with Sabeen and her family? Do you think it was understandable for Jack to help them the way he did? Or was it unethical?

  How did you feel about the book’s ending?

  Would Jack and Syd make good parents?

  FURTHER READING

  The best advice anyone can give a writer is to read. Read, read, read. To which I would add: as widely as possible. Because you never know where your inspiration will come from. Here is a list of books that, one way or another, influenced The New Neighbors.

  HOUSE OF LEAVES, MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

  The house Jack and Syd buy in The New Neighbors is at the heart of the story. It is both the setting for the novel and a stage, in more senses than one. And although it represents Jack and Syd’s freedom (they believe), it also eventually comes to feel more like a prison. The same could also be said about the house that sits at the center of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. Unlike my novel, this is an out-and-out haunted-house story, and about the most inventive one I have ever read. More than that, it is one of the most inventive novels I have read in any genre.

  THE ROAD, CORMAC MCCARTHY

  Technically and philosophically, this is probably not McCarthy’s best book. His masterpiece, probably, is Blood Meridian—although I also love Child of God. And Outer Dark. And . . . well, everything else McCarthy has produced. But The Road, I would say, is my favorite of his novels (and one of my favorite novels of all time), if only for the devastating portrait he paints of a father’s love for his son. And, of course, fatherhood is one of the central themes of The New Neighbors. I must have read The Road four or five times now (I’ve seen the film, too, but only once and never again). Devastatingly simple, yet dazzling in so many ways, this is the book I wish I had written.

  CAPITAL, JOHN LANCHESTER

  Not a crime novel or a thriller, but a book about community (or lack of it) on a single London street. I love that central premise, in the same way I love the idea of any story that has such a constricted setting. The more constricted, actually, the better (Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, in my mind, is the apotheosis of this idea). Writers are often berated for using stereotypes in their fiction, but here, Lanchester employs them (archetypes, might be a better word) to devastating—and hilarious—effect.

  AS IF, BLAKE MORRISON

  Like The Road, this is another work (nonfiction, this time) I could read again and again—were it not so intensely heartbreaking. Although actually, that hasn’t stopped me, and nor should it any parent, son or daughter. “They fuck you up,” Larkin famously said of your mum and dad, and Morrison sympathetically and compassionately shows just how painfully true this dictum is, as well as shining a light on how perilously close we all are to accepting violence and needless cruelty.

  THE SHINING, STEPHEN KING

  Quite honestly, I could have picked any one of Stephen King’s scores of books, and I waver on whether The Shining is even my favorite. (It isn’t. IT is. Or The Stand. Or On Writing, although does that count? Maybe it’s The Shining after all . . .) But as another example of a brilliantly executed haunted-house (sort of) story, as well as a devastating portrayal of a family coming apart, The Shining probably most directly influenced The New Neighbors. King’s characters are flesh and blood; his tone and technique are masterful. If you haven’t read The Shining, what are you waiting for? Oh, and again: don’t bother with the film.

  MACBETH, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  OK, so technically this is a play, but how could I leave this out? I reread (and watched) Macbeth several times in the months prior to me starting The New Neighbors. There is nothing I can add to the mountains of criticism that already exist on Shakespeare’s finest (in my utterly inexpert opinion) play, save to say that in terms of The New Neighbors, it showed me how a story so apparently reliant on unremitting darkness and hideously flawed characters can transcend both of these things. As Charles Dickens put it, “I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.”

  GONE GIRL, GILLIAN FLYNN

  I couldn’t leave this out. Another dark story that captivates in spite of its thoroughly unlikable central characters, with twists aplenty and a pace that never lets up. A master class in he said/she said storytelling—and indeed in crime fiction generally. Probably because Flynn was involved in the screenwriting, the film was pretty good, too!

  Simon Lelic is a former journalist and the author of the award-winning A Thousand Cuts as well as the critically acclaimed The Facility and The Child Who. The New Neighbors is his first psychological thriller, inspired by a love of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. Simon lives with his wife and three children. Visit his website at simonlelic.com.

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