The Perfect Neighbours

by Rachel Sargeant

  Helen sighed. “I listened more than talked. Are you coming back to bed?”

  “I’ll just finish this,” he said, a desolate look in his eyes.

  Fiona

  “You’re on the home straight now,” Dad said. “Come July we’ll have a graduate in the family.”

  He lifted my heavy suitcase onto the bed and winced, letting out a sharp breath.

  “Sssh, Dad, don’t tempt fate.” I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, pretending not to notice the twinge when I pressed against his chest.

  Mum found some wire coat hangers in the empty wardrobe and opened the suitcase. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you get an Upper Second. Your French is so good after your year in Lyons.” She started putting my clothes on the hangers.

  “Thanks, Mum, but how do you know? You don’t speak French,” I said, taking over the unpacking.

  She kissed me on the nose and we giggled.

  Dad rattled the bookcase. “You’d best put your big books on the bottom so it doesn’t wobble over.” He walked to the window. “Nice view of the bins.”

  Mum joined him. “She doesn’t need a view. She’ll either be working or sleeping when she’s in here.”

  “How far is it to the student bar?” Dad said, standing on tiptoes to peer out. “We could check out the route with you before we go.”

  “No, thanks,” I said quickly. I wasn’t in with the in-crowd at the best of times, but arriving at the uni bar with my parents would make me the uncoolest student outside the computer science faculty.

  “Do I take it you want your personal chauffeurs to hop it before we damage your street cred?” Dad said. He was smiling, but there was that penetrating twinkle in his eyes. Even when he’d been ill he had kept his unerring ability to read me like a kiddies’ comic.

  I hugged them both, breathing in the smell of them.

  “See you at Christmas,” Mum said.

  We hugged again, not knowing that Christmas would never come.

  4

  Monday, 12 April

  Gary pecked her on the neck, shoved a slice of toast in his mouth and headed for the kitchen door.

  “I was thinking I might paint the lounge this week. Any preference on colour?” Helen called after him.

  He came back in. “Up to you as long as we paint it back to magnolia if ever we move out.”

  “What about the Howards’ house? They’ve virtually taken a bulldozer to it. Will they have to put it back when they leave?”

  “Eventually. I don’t know who the landlord is – some German Herr Money Bags no doubt – but we have to leave things as we find them. I can’t see Damian quitting Niers International in a hurry. Where else would you have every child’s dad in full employment? A bit of a difference from the comp you worked in.”

  Helen said nothing but wanted to point out he’d never been to her school. Shrewsbury Academy had more than its fair share of success stories.

  “Number Ten is something, isn’t it? Louisa has a real eye for design,” he said. “You could try a bit of painting if you want to.” He gave her another peck and left.

  Helen dropped the breakfast pots in the sink and wondered what she could do that wouldn’t involve an unfavourable comparison with the decor queen across the road.

  She and Gary had spent the previous week like tourists: Cologne Cathedral, a boat trip on the Rhine, and Kaffee und Kuchen in several chintzy cafés. Days wrapped in the mist and drizzle of a North German spring, but burning with the same light as their Jamaican winter honeymoon. They’d discovered the Caribbean together, but here Gary was her personal guide, showing off, proud and impatient for her approval. And she’d given it, teasingly at first, watching uncertainty flicker in his eyes before letting her kiss reassure him.

  She pointed the tap at the dirty plates. Her mind wandered to the welcome briefing she’d endured the previous Friday. The school employed a nurse, a smart, thirty-something German woman called Sabine, who doubled as the staff and pupil welfare officer. She’d invited Helen and two new teaching assistants into her treatment room. Helen sat between the two gap-year Australians, facing a medical examination table. Above it was an instruction poster on how to conduct a smear test.

  Over instant coffee and custard creams, Sabine told them, in her impeccable English, about registering with a local doctor and what school facilities they were entitled to use. When Helen had asked when the school swimming pool was open to staff and families, Sabine shook her head. “It’s only for the children. The nearest indoor swimming pool is over the border at a Center Parcs in Holland.” A door banged shut in Helen’s head; she lived for her daily lane swim, but not if it meant dodging round splashing holidaymakers.

  “Of course, there’s the open-air pool in Dortmannhausen village,” Sabine added. “We Germans don’t swim outdoors unless there’s a heatwave, but one of the British wives got a campaign going and persuaded the Kreis authorities to open it from early May, so you won’t have to wait long.”

  Now Helen grabbed the tap and let water gush over the crockery, some splashes hitting her. May was still three weeks away. She opened the herbal oil that Louisa had foisted on her at the dinner party and coughed at its biting, acidic scent. She added a few drops to her bowl and watched the pale liquid spread in the running water and mingle with her crockery. It looked like pee. She grabbed the bowl and emptied it.

  She watched out of the window as various neighbours set off for school, some on bikes, some walking. She stepped back from the window when Louisa swept past in an enormous four-by-four, powerful enough to cross the Serengeti plains. She slammed the herbal oil bottle into her pedal bin.

  By nine the cul-de-sac was deserted. She must have missed Chris next door at number 7 although his sports car was still parked in the street.

  She tipped out the rest of her coffee. Now what? Mop the floor? Rearrange the fridge? She could ring Mum. They’d exchanged several texts and she’d sent a postcard from Cologne, but they hadn’t spoken since she left Shrewsbury. If she phoned, Mum would read her mood from a thousand miles away. And she’d say that thing she always said. Like she did when they came back married from Jamaica. Like she did when Helen announced she was giving up her job to join Gary in Germany – “Just as long as you’re happy.” It was the soundtrack through the unauthorized version of her life. When she refused to eat peas; when she chose swimming over ballet; when she changed universities halfway through her degree. She decided to wait a few more days before ringing, do it when she was settled.

  A key rack on the wall caught her eye. She picked up the key labelled “Shed”.

  ***

  Inside the concrete construction at the bottom of the garden she discovered a decent set of tools and a lawnmower. She thought of the manicured shrubbery around Louisa’s house and her competitive instinct took hold. But something about being in the back garden unnerved her, and not just the yapping dogs in the nearby kennels. A dark copse of trees grew behind the gardens in Dickensweg, separating them from the gardens of the next street. It joined up at right angles with the wood behind the Howards’ fence. The whole estate enjoyed a similar leafy arrangement. Her skin prickled. An intruder could pass through the network of copses and climb into any garden unnoticed. She gathered her tools and headed to the front of the house.

  She stabbed the spade into the flower bed under the kitchen window but only broke off the stalks of a few weeds. She dug harder, but the dense greenery fought her off and she couldn’t reach the soil. Another lunge, and the bones in her arms juddered as the spade hit bedrock. Rubbing the sweat off her forehead, she contemplated how else she could tackle the task.

  “Slacking already?” Chris said, coming out of his front door. His voice made her bones rattle more than the bedrock had done.

  “Not working today?” she asked. School would be well into the registration period. Didn’t the head of A and D have a form class?

  He stepped across their joint path towards her. “Tough job turning your gar
den into Number Ten.”

  She felt him sizing her up. She knew what he saw: damp fringe, ruddy cheeks, traces of snot and grass stain where she’d rubbed her nose.

  “A bit of weeding,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It’s more than that. You’re a competitive woman.” When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Gary’s told us all about your coaching and your swimming career. You like to be the best, don’t you?”

  She lifted the spade again, undecided on whether to sink it into the soil or to bring it down on his head. How dare this stranger pronounce on her life? “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Louisa likes to be the top wife round here, that’s all I’m saying.” He sauntered towards the sports car, gave her a wave and drove off.

  She dug faster, scratching and gouging, and turned over a good third of the bed before she heard a car pull up.

  “I see Gary’s got you earning your keep.”

  In any other tone Helen would have taken the comment as a jokey conversation opener but this voice was as piercing as Chris’s eyes had been.

  “Morning, Louisa,” she managed to say. The top wife climbed out of the Serengetiguzzler. Pastel pink tracksuit, spotless trainers, full make-up.

  “I stopped to ask whether you wanted to come for a run but I can see you’re busy. How about tomorrow at nine thirty?”

  “I’m not much of a runner,” Helen said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

  “Gary said you ran three miles a day when you lived in England.”

  What the hell else had Gary said? “Maybe, once I’ve settled in.”

  “Make it soon. It’s bad for the metabolism to stop exercising. You’ll put on weight.”

  “I’m sure the gardening will compensate,” Helen said, not snapping.

  The door of number 7 opened and Mel backed down the step with a pushchair. She was wearing the same leopard-print leggings that she’d worn at Louisa’s party the previous week.

  Glad of the distraction, Helen called out: “I didn’t know you had a baby. Who’s this then?”

  The pushchair was empty. Helen assumed the child was still in the house, but Mel’s strained features instinctively told her there was no child.

  For once she was glad of Louisa, who said: “Is that another pushchair for HFN? What a knack you have for finding them. Pop it in the boot and I’ll take it up later.”

  Mel’s face bulged with colour. “I’ll walk it round. Thanks.”

  “If you’re sure you can walk that far,” Louisa said and added for Helen’s benefit, “Mel suffers from shortness of breath.”

  Helen gave Mel a smile. “What’s HFN?” she asked for something to say.

  “Home Front Network. The Elementary division of the school starts at nursery age, but we do our bit for pre-school families too. Some young mothers, living so far from their home countries, become a bit overwhelmed and need a helping hand to get organized. I’m the branch chair,” Louisa said.

  Helen pitied the harassed mums who found Louisa Howard on their doorstep offering to organize them. “Are you a volunteer, too?” she asked Mel.

  “Mel is an absolute stalwart but we prefer volunteers who are mothers themselves. Unless you’ve had a baby, you can’t know what you’re dealing with.” Louisa clasped her hand to her chest, no doubt an I Endured Childbirth gesture.

  Mel, who’d been admiring the pavement, walked off without saying goodbye. Helen got the impression she’d heard Louisa’s pronouncement before and knew she’d reached the end of it. She trudged along Dickensweg, shoulders hunched over the pushchair. An elderly man came round the corner, tipped his felt hat to her and went towards the door of number 2.

  “Manfred, come and meet your new neighbour,” Louisa called out to him.

  If the man was irritated at being summoned, he didn’t show it. He walked towards them. Although he was tall, he stooped so he didn’t tower over Helen the way many German men did. He lifted his hat in greeting, revealing a smattering of liver spots at his hairline. How old was he? Seventy? Nearly eighty? He gave her a firm handshake.

  “Angenehm. Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  “Where have you been this bright and early?” Louisa asked.

  “Every morning I go for a healthy walk along the river.” As he spoke in his thick guttural accent, he gave off the tinny fumes of alcohol.

  “I’m glad you’re keeping busy. Do let me know if I can do anything for you. You’re always welcome here.”

  Welcome in his own country? What a cheek. He must have caught Helen raising her eyebrows but his face remained impassive, his own heavy eyebrows and thick moustache doing much to conceal his expression. When Louisa turned away from him, he took this as his dismissal and headed back up the street.

  “He does his best, poor chap, a bit of a drinker,” Louisa said. “Don’t worry, he can’t understand; his English is pretty ropey. Anyway, must dash if I’m to fit in five miles before lunch. Let me know when you’re ready to join me. Remember what I said about the weight.” She climbed back into her car.

  Helen was sure Manfred had hesitated on his porch, listening. His English sounded pretty competent to her.

  By noon she’d turned over the front bed. The street was silent. Sun glinted on the shutters at the Howards’ house, reflecting their yellowness onto an open upstairs window at number 8. She shuddered, imagining the same colour might be projected on her own house. A crow cawed and swooped at the window. It clung onto the bottom of the frame, claws scrambling and scraping, wings flapping. Its beak banged against the glass, fighting with its own image. Pulse racing, Helen dropped her spade and backed to her front door. The battling bird lost its footing and flew off. She went back to work but, as she dug, kept looking around, unable to shake off the feeling that someone was watching, standing over her.

  She was glad when it was three o’clock and busy in the street. Mothers, bikes, and children used the path by Louisa’s house to cut through to the next cul-de-sac. Also striding up the road without the pushchair, at a pace which Helen previously assumed wasn’t possible for her, was Mel. She turned up her path and didn’t acknowledge Helen.

  As well as clearing the flower bed, Helen mowed the lawn and pulled out the weeds between the paving slabs. Her shirt stuck to her underarms and her back was stiff, but she was happy-knackered; a good day’s work. She sat on the step with a coffee as some teenage girls moved through Dickensweg towards the cut-through. They tapped into their mobile phones. When Chris’s sports car roared up, the girls flocked around it, all their texting forgotten.

  “Have you decided yet, sir?” one said, flicking her greasy side fringe behind her ear.

  Chris brushed his hand through his own thick, white hair. “I’m still working on the casting.”

  “What are you looking for?” a tall, elegant girl asked. Helen thought she was stunning.

  Apparently so did Chris. “Strong features like yours might work.”

  The girl lost her poise as the compliment reduced her to a giggling teenager. The girls crowded closer and all talked at once. Chris fed them with non-committal but encouraging one-liners: I have to get the balance right; everyone has a chance; I’ll let you know when I screen test.

  As he walked past Helen, he said: “We only have to do the back gardens, you know. School maintains the front between May and October. Another three weeks and they’d have done it for you.”

  She stamped the mud out of her wellingtons before going indoors. Prick, she stamped, prick, prick, prick.

  ***

  That night her sleep was fitful. But as well as Gary’s frantic tapping on the games controller through the left-hand wall, other noises invaded her dreams. The face at the Howards’ back fence morphed into the crow at the Stephens’s window. Her heart raced and she sat up in bed until the dream left her. When fully awake, she ached her way to the bathroom, her back and knees complaining about the gardening. The sounds from her dream were louder through the wall. She sat on the
loo, releasing her stream slowly to keep it quiet. A nosy git like Chris Mowar would get off on hearing her pee. She heard a cough, a gasping, empty-out-the-lungs noise, and sloshing sounds. She pressed the flush; Chris was making too much noise next door to hear her.

  5

  Sunday, 2 May

  Mel’s heart raced when the Barton couple at number 1 stepped out of their front door with their pack of yapping spaniels. But they turned left onto the main street, the dogs pulling against their leads to sniff the grass verge. Mel sighed with relief and knelt by Chris’s car to continue cleaning the tyres.

  “Guten Tag,” a voice said, hard and guttural.

  The young man was gaunt, scruffy-looking. He must have come from the copse that ran between their cul-de-sac and the one behind. She’d seen him once before, hanging around the edge of the wood, and she’d stayed indoors until he’d walked off. Now he squatted beside her and said something in German.

  She didn’t know what he said, but she could smell him, taste him, tobacco. She leapt to her feet and felt her skin draw bone-white. Black dots floated in front of her eyes.

  He stood up and put his hand in his jacket. She flinched. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, opened it and offered her one. She stepped further away, her eyes darting between the man and the packet. She wished Chris was here; he’d know what to do.

  The man shrugged, lit a cigarette for himself and pocketed the pack.

  What now? She was working a cotton bud between her fingers. Her fists were tensed in front of her although she knew she’d be no match if he got nasty.

  He pointed at the cotton bud. “You British won’t get your wheels dirty.”

  A deep heat rose up her throat and she felt dizzy. Hearing him speak English made him more threatening.

  He ran his fingernails over the bonnet, not quite hard enough to leave a scratch. “Expensive car,” he said. “You like driving it?”