The New Neighbours

by Costeloe Diney

  Two

  Ben Gardner sat at his desk and stared out of the window across the college gardens to the windows of the hall opposite. He had an essay on Richard III to hand in, in the morning, and he had only just begun to marshal his thoughts on how that monarch governed his kingdom, and already his mind was drifting again. Next year he had to find somewhere to live, he couldn’t remain in hall for his final year and so far he had done little to find himself a room or a flat. There had been some talk earlier in the year that Madeleine Richmond’s father was going to buy a house for her to live in for the rest of her time at college, and was going to rent out the other bedrooms in it to pay the mortgage. Madeleine had asked Ben if he wanted to go in with her, to take one of the rooms that would be on offer, and he had agreed. It seemed a good idea.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Why not? We get on all right. As long as I have a room to myself… and the rent’s right of course,” he added as an afterthought. “You asked anybody else yet?”

  Madeleine shook her head. “Not yet. Got any ideas? No boyfriends or girlfriends though, too much hassle.” She looked stricken for a moment. “You didn’t want Angie to share too, did you? I mean…”

  “No, I didn’t,” Ben reassured her.

  “It’s just that…well I mean, of course she’s very welcome to visit any time, to stay over and things, but not to live. One of Dad’s rules!”

  “Don’t worry,” Ben said. “That arrangement suits me fine. Have you got anyone in mind? How big’s the house? I mean, how many bedrooms?”

  Madeleine laughed. “I don’t know. We haven’t found one yet!”

  “Yeah, well when you have, let me know.”

  Occasionally after that, Ben would ask her how the house hunting was going, and Madeleine would grin cheerfully and say, “Nothing yet, but we’re still looking.” He hoped that they would find something suitable. He liked Mad Richmond, she made him laugh. They went around in the same crowd, as her present boyfriend, Dan Sharp, was another keen rugby man, and Ben thought she was always good company.

  Now it was May, and if they didn’t find a house soon he’d have to give up on Madeleine and make a determined effort to find something, somewhere. It wouldn’t be easy, there were too many students chasing too little accommodation in the town, and only freshers were automatically found a place in hall. Ben sighed. He’d been relying on Mad Richmond, but it didn’t sound as if she would definitely have a house ready for the end of September, and he had to be practical. He wondered what the others had decided to do. There were now three other students who were interested in sharing the house. Ben knew them as they were all in the same hall, and he liked them well enough, but he wasn’t particularly close to any of them. He hoped the house would be big enough to give them room to breathe… if there was a house.

  Ben was older than most of the students in his year as he had only decided to go to university after trying several other things first. He’d left it late and at twenty-five he was determined to get a good degree, but he was short of cash, he had no grant, only a student loan. To make enough money to live, he worked several evenings a week in the Flying Dutchman, a pub frequented mainly by students from the university. It was good working there because he was able to join in some of the social side of life from the other side of the bar. His girlfriend, Angie, often came and sat on the corner bar stool, making a half of shandy last most of the evening, and the Dutch, as it was known, was also the official rugby club pub, and Ben was a regular player in the Belcaster University first fifteen, The Belchers.

  He knew that as a last resort there might be a chance of a room at the Dutch, but he didn’t really want to live there.

  “You can probably have the back bedroom,” Joe Briggs the landlord had said when he heard that Ben was looking for somewhere for next year. “I haven’t used it since we stopped doing B&B. Now it’s only a dumping ground. It’s not big, mind, but it would serve a turn if you wanted it. Be nice to have you on hand, in case you needed any extra hours.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” Ben had been touched by the offer, but it certainly wasn’t ideal as far as he was concerned. He didn’t want to be “on hand” as Joe put it, called up whenever Joe and Jane were short-staffed. However, he did go up and look at the room. It was tiny, with no space for more than a bed and a desk, and there were no kitchen facilities. No, certainly not ideal, but it was an offer he could keep on hold to be accepted if he became desperate. “Thanks, Joe, I may take you up on it, but I’m still hoping Madeleine Richmond’s dad is going to find a house in time.”

  Joe nodded. He liked Ben, he was a popular barman and good at the job, and he wanted to keep him. “No problem. It’d be much more fun for you in a proper student house, and that Mad Richmond is always a live wire isn’t she? I mean, never quiet when she’s in the bar, is it? But you know the offer’s there if you want it.”

  “I can’t see why you don’t move in with me,” Angie suggested when he told her about Joe’s offer. “That seems the obvious thing to do. There’ll be room in our house in September, because David will have graduated.” Ben shook his head. He had no intention of moving in with Angie for various reasons, but all he said was, “No, I don’t think so, Ange. I don’t want to live that far out of town.”

  “It’s not far out,” Angie said.

  “Not for you,” Ben agreed, “you’ve got a car.”

  “Or what passes for one,” Angie agreed ruefully thinking of the clapped-out Volkswagen beetle she had bought with her summer vacation earnings. “You could always get a bike. Be good for your rugby training, biking in every day.”

  That was another bone of contention. Ben’s rugby. It was all right in the summer when there wasn’t any, but during the season when he went training mid-week and played matches every Saturday, sometimes miles away so that he wasn’t home for the evening, there had been several mutterings about “You love rugby more that you do me”, and on balance Ben thought that he probably did.

  Anyway, he had lived with a girlfriend before and it was not an experience he was rushing to repeat. When he was twenty his girlfriend, Katie, had moved in with him and they had been a definite item for over a year. Gradually however, they had drifted apart and things had started to go wrong. Their circle of friends changed as Katie became more involved in her job and the people she worked with, and Ben seemed excluded. She had less and less time for the crowd he wanted to go around with and the recriminations began… Where have you been? Why are you so late? Who have you been with? By the time they had finally decided that their relationship was over and Katie moved out, the last flames of affection had been extinguished, the upheaval was enormous and the bitterness extraordinary.

  “As bad as getting divorced,” Ben told his mate Flintlock. “Watched my parents do that. Shan’t get caught in that trap again!”

  Flintlock had grinned. “Yeah, you will, with some other bird.”

  Ben had laughed too, “Well, maybe, but not for a hell of a long time. Love ’em and keep ’em at arm’s length. That’s what I say. Let them look forward to seeing you, not fall over them night and morning and,” he added as an afterthought, “you can steer well clear when it’s PMT time!”

  Definitely, Angie was not a girl he wanted to move in with. He still liked his space. He looked forward to seeing her in the evenings all right, to going to parties with her, to going to bed with her, but she was not the centre of his life and they both knew it. Angie wanted that to change. Ben didn’t.

  He was just turning his attention back to Richard III when there was a banging on his door. Only one person knocked like that.

  “Come in, Mad,” he called and she exploded into the room, her face split into a beam. She grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “Guess what,” she cried, as she flung herself down on to his bed. “We’ve got it!”

  “Got what?”

  “The house, dumb-dumb, the house, and it’s brilliant!” She beamed across at him. “You’ll love it. It’s in Dartmouth Circle, so i
t’s right near the Union. Couldn’t be better, could it?”

  “Sounds great,” Ben agreed.

  “You are still on, aren’t you? Like, to share, I mean? You haven’t found anywhere else?” This had been worrying Madeleine. She knew the time for finding the house had run short. All the students needed to be certain of somewhere to live in September before they went down for the long summer holidays, and she had known that Ben was beginning to look around.

  “No, sounds great,” repeated Ben. “Is it definite?”

  “Yeah, contracts exchanged today, and completion in a couple of weeks. But Mr Short, the guy who owns it, says we can go down any time and look at it. There’s lots to be done on it, but Dad says he can have it all ready for the beginning of next term, no problem. Let’s go out and celebrate.”

  “Have you told the others? Are they still on?

  “As far as I know, though I’m not sure about Mandy, I think she’s been looking elsewhere. I came to tell you first, but I’m on my way to tell them now. Coming?”

  Ben looked at the work on his desk. “Can’t, not now. Got to hand this in tomorrow, but I’m working at the Dutch tonight. Bring them there and we’ll celebrate then.”

  Mad got up from the bed. “OK,” she said. “See you later.”

  “Oh, Mad, if Mandy has changed her mind, I know someone who might be interested in taking her place.”

  Madeleine paused by the door. “Oh, who’s that?”

  “Girl on my medieval history course, Charlotte Murphy. Her room’s on Bottom East. She was saying the other day that her plans for next year have fallen through. You know her, tall willowy blond, always wears lots of chains round her neck?”

  “Yeah, I know the one. Nice, is she?” enquired Mad with a grin.

  “Yeah, good kid. She’s had to repeat her second year because she was ill. And before you go stirring it up with Angie, I see her at lectures, that’s all.”

  Madeleine laughed. “Fine, no probs. If Mandy has found somewhere else we’ll ask Charlotte.”

  “Charlie, she’s called Charlie.”

  “OK, well, I must away. Back to your work my man, and we’ll see you down the Dutch later.”

  Madeleine waltzed off down the corridor to spread the good news to the others. She could hear Cirelle’s reggae music throbbing through her door and knowing she would never be heard above the beat, Madeleine didn’t bother to knock, but simply went in.

  Cirelle looked up and smiled. She was sitting on her bed braiding her hair. “Hi Mad,” she said, and reached across to turn the volume of her stereo down a fraction. “What are you at?”

  “The house,” crowed Madeleine. “That’s what. We’ve got it! Contracts exchanged today.”

  “Hey, man, that’s great. Where is it? Is there room for us all as planned?”

  “Yup, there’re five bedrooms, or there will be when we’ve finished working on the place, so that’s you and me and Mandy, and Ben and Dean.”

  “Not sure about Mandy,” Cirelle said, her fingers nimbly plaiting and twisting her hair without pause. “Like, I saw her yesterday, and she said she couldn’t wait for your dad to get somewhere, and she’d been offered a place with Billy Thomas and his crowd, you know down the Friary end of town? She might not have taken it yet.”

  “Well, if she has, too bad,” shrugged Madeleine. “Ben says there’s a girl on his course, Charlie Murphy, who’s looking for somewhere. He says she’s OK, so if Mandy’s out we’ll ask her.”

  “Where is this house anyway?” asked Cirelle.

  “Dartmouth Circle. You know it? Just off Dartmouth Road behind St Joseph’s Church. Couldn’t be better could it?”

  “Yes, of course I know St Joseph’s,” said Cirelle. “Sounds great. When do we get in?”

  “Not till September for you. Dad says there’s masses of work to be done on it, but you know he’s a builder, so it won’t be a problem. But it’s got everything we need, or will have. We can all go and see it. Mr Short, who we’re buying it from, says just to give him a ring and come round anytime. I told Ben, and we’re going to celebrate in the Dutch tonight.”

  Cirelle finished her hair and grinned across at Madeleine. “Great. I’m going to the gym before supper, but I’ll be ready to go down the Dutch after that. Come and get me when you’re going. Right?”

  Madeleine jumped to her feet, already on her way to the door, before she darted back to Cirelle and hugged her. “Cool, eh?” she cried and rushed out to find Dean and Mandy.

  There was a sudden emptiness as she left the room, almost as if she’d left a vacuum in her place. Cirelle smiled at the swinging door and got up to close it. She was used to the way Madeleine moved through the world, always rushing enthusiastically from one thing to the next; totally different from Cirelle herself, who liked to consider every move she made before committing herself to anything. Once committed, she was as enthusiastic as anyone else, but life had taught her that thought needed to be given to every action.

  She had taken a long time to decide whether to take up the place she had been offered at Belcaster University. Brought up the eldest of five children in a small house in Brixton, she had been very dubious about launching herself into the world of higher education instead of getting a job locally. She had never been away from home by herself except on one school field trip and only twice on family holidays when they had stayed in a rented caravan in Dorset. The idea of living the other side of the country, in an unfamiliar town where she knew no one, was daunting in the extreme.

  “I’m not sure I’m cut out for student life,” she admitted to her family, and her wide brown eyes were troubled.

  Her parents, who had not been able to stay at school beyond their ‘O’ levels, had been encouraging and supportive.

  “Of course you must go, Cirelle,” her mother Phyllis had urged. “You’ve earned that place, girl, and you gotta go. It’s the chance of a lifetime.” She had smiled proudly at her daughter. “Fancy a daughter of mine going to get a degree.”

  “Hey, steady on, Mum,” laughed Cirelle. “I only just got the place. Supposing I can’t do the work when I get there?”

  “What kind of talk is this?” reproved her mother. “Of course you’ll be able to do it. You’re a clever girl, Cirelle. Don’t waste this chance to get on. And,” she added with a twinkle, “it’ll make Gary work harder. He’ll be determined to show he’s as clever as you!”

  Cirelle smiled at that, thinking of her younger brother Gary about to do his GCSEs, and always keen to prove himself as good as if not better than his older sister.

  “But I could be earning,” she pointed out a little guiltily. “You know, helping with the bills and that.”

  Phyllis engulfed her daughter in a bear-like hug. “Sure you could, babe, but you don’t have to. Dad and I can manage like we always have. You’ll be able to get a loan, won’t you? We’ll all get by, don’t you worry. Don’t you think I’m proud as punch being able to boast about you at work? My daughter, doing her degree in English at Belcaster University! And as for your granddad, he’s nearly bursting with pride!”

  Her father, always less demonstrative, just hugged her and said, “Go for it, girl. Wish I’d had the chance.”

  As the time for her to leave for Belcaster drew nearer, Cirelle found herself dreading it, going to a strange place where she knew no one, had no friends.

  “Everyone will be in the same boat,” her mother pointed out. “All the new students will be as nervous as you. Find a nice church in the area,” Phyllis went on. “You’ll make friends then, people who think as you do.”

  So Cirelle had arrived at Belcaster last year and been allocated a room in a hall of residence, and her life had taken off because the first person she had met that first evening was the girl in the next room, Madeleine Richmond,

  She was very quickly absorbed into the group of students on her landing, and gradually got to know the others on her course. There were plenty of other West Indian students and though at first th
ey gravitated to each other, they were soon all involved with any student who happened to have the same interests. There was no feeling of being a separate group, and her closest friends were those in hall with her.

  When the time came to think about where they would all live in their second year, Cirelle had been pleased when Madeleine had asked her to come in with her in a house somewhere.

  “It’ll be great, Cirelle, you’ll see,” Madeleine had said. “I’d love you to share if you think you could live with me.”

  On the whole, Cirelle thought she could. She knew that she and Mad were quite different from each other, but had long ago decided that was why they got on so well together. Madeleine, exuding self-confidence, was impetuous and immediately affectionate, Cirelle, on the other hand, naturally more reserved, was cautious and less outgoing. Madeleine’s relationship with her boyfriend, Dan, was constantly tempestuous, whereas Cirelle never had a “boyfriend” as such, but was happy to go out in a crowd. She had been to stay with Mad’s family on a couple of weekends and had been made very welcome, slipping easily into the family circle. Over the year, a firm friendship had been forged, and Madeleine’s invitation simply reinforced it.

  In those first weeks, however, Cirelle had followed her mother’s advice, and had discovered St Joseph’s. Though she was nothing like as regular a churchgoer as her mother would have wished, she did sometimes go there to church and had offered to help occasionally making teas and coffees in the St Joe’s drop-in day centre.

  “It’s mostly the elderly and disabled who use the centre,” Frank Marsh, the vicar explained, “so you’d be doubly welcome, a new face and someone who’s young as well.”