The Perfect Neighbours

by Rachel Sargeant

  “Gary, darling.” Louisa appeared in the hall and kissed Gary on both cheeks. She was wearing tailored brown trousers and a cream chiffon blouse, every inch a prime minister’s wife and living up to her house name.

  She eyed Helen’s jeans. “You wear casual so well,” she said as her head moved in the general direction of Helen’s in an air kiss.

  Helen stiffened but Louisa seemed oblivious to the offence she’d caused. “Toby, poppet,” she said, “move your school bag; it’s a deathtrap when you leave it on the stairs. Put it in the cellar and then get ready for the recital.”

  “Yes, Mummy,” Toby groaned.

  The wooden floor continued into the lounge, a sumptuous cream rug at the centre. Did all head teachers live like this or only those in international schools? A gold and yellow striped wallpaper adorned the far wall. The French windows were draped in blue velvet curtains, half closed, but Helen could make out a trampoline in the large back garden beyond. The other lounge walls had modern art prints mounted on them. Sliding doors through to the dining room were pushed back to reveal an elegantly laid table.

  “I know those doors are ghastly,” Louisa said, appearing behind her with a bowl of salad. “Our next project is to have them removed and the surrounding wall knocked out. It’s difficult for Damian when he has to entertain important visitors in such a tiny space, isn’t it, darling?” She patted the arm of a tall, blond man who had walked in with two glasses of champagne.

  “It seats twelve, Louisa. It’s fine. You must be Helen. I’m Damian.” He turned the sigh he’d aimed at his wife into a smile at Helen. He gave both women their drinks and kissed Helen on the cheek. The kiss was chaste but his hand stayed on her waist. Damian Howard struck her as someone who might spend a lot of time kissing other people’s wives.

  “Darling, why don’t you take Gary to choose a beer? I’m sure he’d prefer it to champagne. Helen, come and meet Jerome and Polly. Jerome’s our head of science.” In a slick manoeuvre Louisa separated her husband from the new female guest. She ushered Helen over to a couple who had just arrived.

  Jerome shook Helen’s hand.

  His wife, who was holding a baby monitor, smiled in greeting. “Gary’s told us so much about you. It’s super to meet you at last,” she said. She was wearing jeans. Had she been on the receiving end of Louisa’s “casual” jibe too?

  “Do you think I could put this down?” she asked her husband, holding up the monitor. She turned to Helen. “We’re next-door – at number 8 – so we’ll hear the girls on the baby alarm if they wake up. That’s the marvellous thing about living here. You always know who’s about.”

  Helen nodded but was surprised these middle-class parents left their children under the supervision of a piece of Mothercare kit.

  The doorbell rang and Louisa brought another couple into the room. It was the man Helen had seen climbing out of the red sports car. He took her hand. “I’m Chris Mowar and you must be my new lady next door. It’s going to be a pleasure.”

  He held onto her and his shiny eyes scrutinized her face. She decided it was time to tug her hand away, but as she did so, he let go, making it look as if she had pulled harder than necessary. She had the unpleasant sensation that she’d reacted exactly as he had wanted her to.

  “This is Mel,” he said, as if introducing someone he’d met in the hallway.

  The woman tried to balance the large plate she was carrying in her left hand to free her right for a handshake but she couldn’t manage it. Beads of moisture gathered on her hairline. When Damian appeared with Gary’s beer and more champagne on a tray, she tried to give him the plate of food she’d brought.

  “Sorry, Mel, I’m just the bartender. I’ll put your drink over here.”

  “I can hold that plate while you have your drink,” Helen said.

  Mel shook her head. She must be about thirty-five years old, around the same age as her husband, Chris, but he’d aged better despite his white hair. He dressed better too; his silk shirt must have had a tidy price tag. But looking at Mel, Helen wondered whether Louisa had told her as a joke that this was a Vicars and Tarts party. Dimples of cellulite showed on her thighs through overstretched leopard-print Lycra.

  When Louisa came back, Mel offered her the plate.

  “Hot cross buns. Lovely,” Louisa said. “Put them in the kitchen.”

  Polly looked down at her baby monitor. “It’s Purdy I’m more worried about. She’s chewed her way through two cushions this week already.”

  “Purdy is their Dalmatian,” Damian said, topping up Helen’s glass. “We’re a doggy street. Karola Barton at number 1 gave up a legal career to breed springer spaniels. At the last count, she and Geoff had six in kennels in the back garden. And we’ve got a dog although Louisa makes such a fuss of him he thinks he’s our fourth son. He’s in the music room at the moment.” He nodded towards a door beyond the dining room. “No doubt he’ll join us for the recital.”

  Before Helen could ask what he meant, Louisa tapped a spoon against her glass. Everyone fell silent and she made her announcement: “It’s super to see you here to greet our newest arrival, Helen. Please join me in giving her a traditional Niers School welcome.”

  The guests erupted into applause. It was like being received into a religious cult. Helen’s glance stayed on the parquet floor until the ovation subsided. When Louisa stopped clapping, the others did too.

  “And now the boys are going to perform for us,” Louisa said. “Toby has been begging me to let him play ‘Kalinka’, haven’t you, Toby?”

  Toby gave a bemused smile and opened the door beyond the dining table to the music room. Out bounded an enormous polar bear of a dog. It sniffed round the assembled guests, its wagging tail slapping their legs. Mel Mowar gulped and backed into a coffee table.

  Louisa grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him across the floor. “For goodness’ sake, Mel, you know Napoleon won’t hurt you. He’s just being friendly. Everyone, go through to the music room.”

  Mel’s breathing sounded erratic, but no one paid her any attention, not even her husband Chris.

  “Shall we go through?” Helen whispered to her.

  Mel gave a relieved smile.

  The tiny music room was kitted out with an upright piano, a bookcase of music scores and now three small boys, sitting behind a cello, violin, and tambourine. As the guests squeezed in, the smallest boy waved his tambourine at them.

  “Murdo, don’t play until I nod,” Louisa told him.

  “Noh, noh,” the boy said.

  Helen decided he was younger than he looked, and cute. She smiled.

  Louisa’s elegant fingers glided over the keys. It was obvious that Toby hadn’t begged to play the piece at all. She’d chosen it to show off her musicianship.

  Helen glanced at the bookcase, at the TV in the corner, at the other guests in the cramped room – anywhere to avoid watching the self-satisfied expression on Louisa’s face. There was a small window out onto the garden. Something caught her eye at the back fence. A dot of orange light and a dark, moving shape. She squinted hard for a better look.

  When Louisa tackled a tricky chord, Jerome Stephens stepped forward to applaud and obscured Helen’s view of the garden. She tilted her head and saw elbows and hands on the back fence. A face appeared, spat out a cigarette and vanished.

  She was about to warn her hosts, when Toby came in on the cello. It would be rude to interrupt the child; she’d wait until the end. She’d expected him to be rubbish, assuming that Louisa was a deluded, selectively deaf mother who couldn’t hear the screeching tune being murdered on the half-size instrument. But Toby could play. He wasn’t Jacqueline du Pré but he was better than the kids who performed solos at the school where Helen used to teach. And they had been teenagers; this was a boy of eight. When he finished she clapped as enthusiastically as the other guests.

  Louisa announced that they would play the last part again so that Toby’s brothers could join in. She hit the piano keys harder th
is time. Leo, the middle child on the violin, hadn’t inherited his brother’s talent. Napoleon retreated to the dining room to escape the highpitched whining. Louisa nodded at Murdo but he continued chewing his tambourine. He joined in the applause at the end.

  “Why didn’t you play, Murdo?” Louisa asked. “Didn’t you see Mummy nod?”

  Damian ruffled his youngest son’s hair. “It doesn’t matter, matey. Let’s have supper.”

  Helen opened her mouth to tell them about the intruder, but the view from the window was serene and the idea seemed ridiculous. Had she really seen someone on the fence? It was getting dark outside and she was two glasses into the Howards’ quality champagne. When she saw Gary looking at her quizzically, she smiled and followed him into the dining room.

  She was sure of two things: Louisa would seat her as far away from Damian as possible and she’d end up next to Mel’s husband Chris. She was right on both counts. Chris was to Helen’s right and beyond him was Polly, still holding her baby alarm. Louisa took her place at the head of the table, on Helen’s left. Damian was at the far end, but still managed to smile in her direction every time she looked up. She found herself blushing.

  When Chris put down his glass and asked, “So, Helen Taylor, tell me about yourself,” she didn’t want to answer. There was something unnerving about him, as if he might use whatever she said against her one day.

  “Not much to tell. What about you?” she said. “What do you teach?”

  “I’m head of A and D. That’s Art and Design. Hardly rocket science but it passes the time until my project is complete.” He faced her but raised his voice to address the whole room. “Have you heard of Michael Moore?”

  Before she could answer, Louisa leaned forward. “He’s an American documentary maker. Chris intends to follow in his footsteps.”

  Chris shook his head. “Louisa, my darling, a Chris Mowar Production doesn’t follow. What I’m working on will turn the documentary film industry on its head.”

  “Chris has a big plan to expose con men but I think it’s been done before,” Louisa said, looking at Helen.

  “Not with the treatment I’m giving it.” Chris tapped the side of his nose. “It’s all about the long haul. Con men take their time to exploit people’s weaknesses. They’d exploit yours,” he said, leaning back in his chair and staring at Louisa.

  “How droll you are,” she said and gave a forced giggle.

  Chris stretched out his arms. “Take this room, for instance, with its statement yellow wallpaper.”

  “It’s savannah and gold. What about it?”

  “Whatever you want to call it, it’s not school-issue. You’ve practically rebuilt this house from the inside out. A con man could send the whole thing tumbling down.”

  Louisa didn’t reply. She concentrated on picking a crumb off the table and depositing it on the side of her plate. The only sound was Napoleon chomping on his bone under the table.

  “So, Helen, what do you think of our little neighbourhood?” Damian called down the table. She wondered if he was asking to deflect the spotlight from his wife. But Helen was now the one feeling the heat. Polly and Jerome looked at her. Louisa was watching too.

  “It’s delightful,” she said, banishing parochial from her mouth.

  “This street is a real community, like Britain in the 1950s,” Damian said.

  “Even though we have some foreigners in our midst.” Chris laughed.

  “Poor old Manfred,” Polly said, moving the baby alarm nearer to her plate. “He must miss his cottage.”

  “He was jolly lucky the German Government gave him a house in perpetuity. We get our rented houses but once we leave the school we’re on our own,” Jerome said.

  “But isn’t that the point?” Polly replied. “He was given that house for life. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that arrangement, the school shouldn’t have demolished it.”

  “I think we’d better explain to Helen,” Damian said. “Manfred Scholz lives at number 2. He’s our groundsman – looks after the school site. One of the perks of the job was his own cottage inside the campus. We wanted the land to build a new gym so he and his wife had to be re-housed in Dickensweg.”

  “He’s a super chap. Dignified,” Jerome added. “But probably time the old boy retired.”

  “He’s been lonely since his wife died but I do what I can to include him,” Louisa said.

  Chris folded his hands behind his head. “If you ask me, he’s no lonelier than he was before. With all that obsessive cleaning, the only way to get attention from a Hausfrau is to lie on your back covered in dust.”

  Helen was shocked at the open insult to the German locals. She glanced across the table to Gary. He stopped smiling and winced. She thought it was apologetic; it damn well ought to be. What kind of neighbourhood had he brought her to?

  After dessert, Louisa took coffee orders. Helen stacked the plates and followed her into the kitchen. The room was space age: white units, black granite tops, built-in cooker. She opened the bin to scrape the plates and saw a heap of hot cross buns at the bottom. So that’s what Louisa thought of Mel’s food offering.

  “Where shall I put this?” Mel appeared with leftover gateau.

  “Bio bin,” Louisa said.

  “I’ll do it.” Helen took the plate from Mel to prevent her seeing inside the bin.

  Jerome came in to say goodbye; he was leaving before Polly to be with their girls. When Helen went back to the dining room, there was no sign of Gary, Damian, or Chris.

  “They’ve gone to the den, in the cellar,” Louisa explained. “It’s very much Damian’s lair; it stops the men making the lounge untidy.” She gave a little giggle. It sounded like a hiccup.

  She invited the women into the lounge but didn’t ask them to sit down. As if at some late-night cocktail party, they stood in the middle of the room. Helen longed to sink into one of the cream sofas which beckoned her like a bubble bath. The herbal scent that she’d encountered in the hallway was stronger here.

  Louisa noticed her sniffing. “It’s lavender. I’ll give you a sample before you leave. I’m a qualified aromatherapist, but only work part-time now that I’m chair of the Parents’ Association and on the Board of Governors.”

  “I don’t know how you do it all,” Polly said.

  “I try,” Louisa said and smoothed down a chiffon sleeve.

  Helen glanced at her watch. Midnight. How much more of Superwoman could she endure? She excused herself to go to the loo and went to find Gary.

  ***

  The cellar in Gary’s house was about as attractive as a multistorey car park, but when she stepped over Toby’s school bag and descended into Damian’s den it was like heading into a nightclub. Red tiles on the walls and another wooden floor. The first room was decked out like a cinema with a huge flat-screen TV, easy chairs, and a popcorn machine. She could hear the men in the room beyond. As she approached, she heard Chris’s voice.

  “You need to lighten up, mate. Club Viva’s in the past. What’s done is done.”

  And Gary’s reply, “Steve texted me again.”

  They were standing around a pool table, holding cues. Gary rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  They looked shocked when they saw her, as if she’d caught them in the act of something. Was it because a female had invaded their beer den, or something else?

  Gary coughed awkwardly. “Are you ready to go, love?” he asked, resting his cue against the wall. “It’s time we called it a night.”

  Whenever they caught up with friends in England, he’d party into the small hours until she dragged him away. But tonight he seemed ready to leave his colleagues. Maybe he wasn’t as fond of his neighbours as she’d assumed. The thought of how in tune the two of them were was exhilarating. She couldn’t wait to get him home.

  ***

  They made love for the first time since her arrival and she fell asleep in his arms. She woke in the night. Was Louisa at the bloody door again? But it wasn’t the do
orbell; it was a staccato tapping noise. Her mind flickered to the face at the Howards’ back fence. An intruder? No, she was being hysterical. The sound must be from next door; Gary had warned her that the walls between the two semis were thin. Chris must be filming night shots for his documentary.

  But the sound was coming from their spare bedroom, the one Gary had set up as a study. She realized she was alone in the bed.

  “Gary?” There was no one else in the house to disturb, but she whispered as she went to him. In the light of the computer game on the screen, he looked grey and there were hollows under his eyes. He was hitting the hand-held controller with his thumbs.

  “You’ll be wrecked in the morning. Come back to bed,” she said.

  He jumped when she spoke. “Sorry, I forgot you were here.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  He’d got up both nights since she had arrived in Germany; now he didn’t even remember she was there. “Are you happy about us living together?”

  He reached out for her arm. “How can you even ask that? It’s what I’ve wanted ever since we got married. I can’t sleep, that’s all. It’s nothing that you’ve done.”

  “You looked serious in Damian’s cellar tonight,” she said. “What were you talking about?”

  “Can’t remember now. Politics probably. Men don’t only talk about football you know.”

  “What’s Club Viva?”

  In the light of the computer screen, Gary’s face grew paler. He thumbed the games controller, ignoring her question.

  “Gary?”

  “Actually that was football talk,” he said and forced a chuckle. “You caught us out. Did you enjoy the evening?”

  “Polly and Jerome were nice,” she conceded. “And Damian was friendly.” She thought of his lingering smiles across the table. Too friendly maybe. “Is he a bit of a, you know, wanderer?”

  Gary’s eyes shot up from the computer screen. “How would I know?” He sounded defensive, then he shrugged. “Why would he play away when he’s got Louisa? She’s great, isn’t she? What did the two of you talk about?”